THE ATTENDANCE of President Dimitris Christofias’ representative Vasos Georgiou and other Greek Cypriots at Saturday’s funeral of Mustafa Arif, one of several hundred Turkish Cypriots missing since intercommunal clashes in the 1960s, will go a long way to healing the long-standing rift between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Arif’s son Kutlay Erk said yesterday.
Erk, north Nicosia’s former mayor and special representative to Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, says his father went missing from Nicosia Central Hospital in December 1963 after being abducted by suspected EOKA fighters. He had suffered a heart attack and was receiving treatment at the hospital at the time. His whereabouts were unknown for nearly 45 years until his remains were discovered just months ago during excavations led by the UN’s Committee for Missing Persons (CMP) in the Nicosia district of Strovolos.
“We were most happy to see Vasos and other Greek Cypriot friends at the funeral,” Erk told the Cyprus Mail yesterday, adding that Christofias had wanted to attend the funeral himself, but had been unable to because of other engagements.
Erk said he believed the attendance of Greek Cypriots at the funeral “gave momentum” to the growing peace movement on the island sparked by the election of Christofias earlier in the year.
“Their attendance will help to inform people of what happened in Cyprus and advances peace,” he said, adding that he believed his father would have been happy that his funeral had become “a symbol of reconciliation”.
The former mayor said that although his father had been killed by Greek Cypriots, his mother, who is also no longer alive, “never held any animosity towards Greek Cypriots in general, and had only ever held EOKA responsible for his death”.
“What we have experienced is a result of fanaticism, but the funeral has become a symbol for those Greek and Turkish Cypriots wanting to work together for peace,” he told the Mail.
Erk believes that Cyprus is now close to reunification, “because there now exists a true will for peace among both communities”.
“The fact that my friend Mr Christofias sent an envoy to my father’s funeral shows this to be the case.”
The funeral, which included no military fanfare, was also attended by Turkish Cypriot leader Talat, ‘prime minister’ Ferdi Sabit Soyer, and several other members of the north’s administration.
