By George Psyllides
THE GOVERNMENT yesterday warned it could not provide security to citizens visiting the north, while denouncing the Turkish Cypriot regime’s blacklist of unwanted Greek Cypriots as illegal.
On Sunday, a Greek Cypriot man was prevented from crossing to the occupied north after his name showed up on a blacklist by the Turkish Cypriot regime.
Refugee Andreas Constantinou from Lapithos, accompanied by friends who had come over from Canada, was planning to visit the Apostolos Andreas monastery on the island’s eastern tip.
But Turkish Cypriot ‘police’ at the Ayios Dhometios checkpoint in Nicosia refused to let him through, saying his name had been placed on a blacklist due to his actions against Turkish Cypriots in 1974.
The man pleaded mistaken identity, saying he had never taken part in any fighting, but to no avail.
It transpired that Constantinou happened to share a name with a man who earlier this month narrowly escaped a lynching when he visited his home village in the north.
He had been fingered by a Turkish Cypriot woman as the man who allegedly killed her husband in 1974.
The Turkish Cypriots manning the checkpoint said they could not confirm Constantinou’s plea of mistaken identity, so his trip to Apostolos Andreas was cancelled.
Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides yesterday denounced the blacklist, and warned the government could not provide any security to its citizens visiting the north.
Chrysostomides said the government was not planning to ask for the lists through the United Nations because it was not customary to ask for details and explanations of measures applied by the breakaway regime.
“We think the list constitutes one more illegal measure by the occupying regime; the threat that people on the list could disappear if they go to the occupied areas is the same with other regimes,” Chrysostomides said.
But in the absence of more detailed information on banned persons, the Turkish Cypriot bar on Andreas Constantinou – a very common name – could mean hundreds of Greek Cypriots cannot cross to the north. The Nicosia phone book alone lists around 115 people under the name Andreas Constantinou.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
