‘File of Cyprus’ report making waves

DISY MP George Georgiou has threatened to walk out of the Committee on the File of Cyprus, if its members insisted on creating a report on its findings.

The report – which according to Committee Chairman, EDEK’s Marinos Sizopoulos, will be ready in mid January – will be on the Committee’s investigation into the events that unfolded leading up to and during the 1974 Turkish invasion.

But according to Georgiou, the Committee’s mandate didn’t allow for it to make conclusions, only to create a historical archive.

In a letter to the House President, DISY’s parliamentary spokesman Christos Pourgourides stressed that the committee’s mandate was “clear and fixed”.

The Committee’s mandate, he added, provides for the creation of a historical archive on the era 1967-1974, which will be kept in a specially-prepared room at Parliament.

“Nowhere in its mandate is the Committee ordered to prepare a report,” said Pourgourides. The reason for this, he explained, was: “Taking into account that the Greek House of Representatives and all Greek governments have refused to provide our House of Representatives with the Greek documents and papers from the period that is under investigation, to conclude on a report without these documents would a result in a crude distortion of the historical truth.”

He added that based on the aforementioned, if the Committee was to conclude on a report, this would irreversibly affect parliament’s credibility and prestige.

“It would send the message that even the most important issue of our modern history was approached with improvisation and great irresponsibility,” said Pourgourides.

Pourgourides and Georgiou have announced that they will hold a press conference on Monday to analyse their views.

Meanwhile, AKEL MP Aristophanis Georgiou claimed the report would clarify the roles of those implicated during the strife and the role of Turkey.

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.