‘Turkish settlers should go home’

ARCHBISHOP Chrysostomos said yesterday that next month, the Church of Cyprus would resort to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to report Turkey for violation of its rights and usurpation of its property in north.

Speaking at Larnaca airport on his return from Poland where he was on an official visit, the Archbishop said that the application against Turkey concerns the refusal of Ankara to allow both clergy and people to visit places of worship in the north as well as Turkey’s refusal to allow the maintenance of the churches and the use of the property of the Church.

“The Church has waited for 35 years and I think they are too many”, he said.

“Next month we will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights for a triple lawsuit against Turkey”.

The Archbishop said Turkey “does not allow us to go to our places of worship, does not allow us to maintain our churches and does not allow us to use our property”.

“It is a triple application and our legal advisors are ready. With God’s help next month we will file the application”, he said.

Invited to comment on the intention of the Turkish side to grant the so called “citizenship” to 15,000 Turkish settlers, he said: “Settles have no place in Cyprus, they must go back to their own country, to their own houses”.

“Settlers are intruders here. Ankara brought them to change the demographic composition of our island”, he added.

Many churches in the Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus have been converted into stables, stores, hen-houses, night clubs, libraries, cultural centres, morgues, mosques and military camps, since the Turkish invasion in 1974.

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.