AG hails key ruling

ATTORNEY-general Solon Nikitas yesterday hailed the ECHR decision as a joyous event that should make every citizen of the Republic feel happy.

Nikitas said the ECHR had stressed that the equal representation the two communities during the negotiations on the Annan plan did not mean recognition of the illegal regime in the north and that Turkey continued to exercise full military control on the northern part of Cyprus.

Turkey was in no position to prove any changes in relation to that, Nikitas said.

In a written statement, and quoting from the court decision, the Attorney-general said that the Greek Cypriot rejection of the Annan plan did not have as a legal consequence, the termination of the continuous violations of the refugees’ human rights, since even the adoption of the plan would not have resulted in the provision of immediate remedy.
It was also important, he said, that the court had rejected Turkey’s new argument that the applicant had to exhaust every domestic legal means by applying to the compensation commission set up in the summer of 2003.

“It should be noted that if Turkey’s claim had been accepted, our international status, based on which we operate as an equal member of the international community, would have received an irreparable blow,” Nikitas said.

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.