Government asks Greek Cypriot CMP member to step down

The government has asked the Greek Cypriot representative on the Committee for Missing Persons (CMP) to step down citing a “restructuring”.

Aristos Aristotelous, a former MP with AKEL which was the ruling party until DISY took over this February, said that for the past six months President Nicos Anastasiades had been ignoring his written requests for a meeting to discuss the CMP. “Perhaps he is not fully informed on how the CMP works,” Aristotelous said.

“The president has excellent knowledge of the issues. Mr Aristotelous should not be concerned,” said deputy government spokesman Victoras Papadopoulos. He said the government’s move was not politically motivated.

The CMP is composed of a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot appointed by the two communities and a third member appointed by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The three-member committee investigate persons reported missing during inter-communal fighting and during the 1974 Turkish invasion.

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.