Efforts for missing persons taken to Strasbourg

CYPRUS is on Wednesday facing a crucial battle for the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights against Turkey, in the framework of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers meeting in Strasbourg.

Among the issues at stake is the progress made concerning the issue of missing persons in Cyprus, amid concerns voiced by their relatives that Turkey is trying to give a somehow ideal impression of its efforts, which they say is not very accurate.

The meeting takes place at the Ministers’ Deputies level, the permanent representatives of the 47 member states of the CoE.

The Committee of Ministers, whose chairmanship is currently held by Bosnia and Herzegovina, is the executive arm of the CoE and, among other things, is responsible for examining the implementation of judgments and decisions by the ECHR, while exerting political pressure to this end.

Ahead of the meeting, the World Federation of Organisations of Missing Persons’ Relatives of Cyprus has sent a letter to the Committee of Ministers expressing disappointment for “the purposeful delay observed on the part of Turkey in fulfilling its obligations to take substantive compliance measures to end the violation of the human rights of the missing persons of Cyprus and their relatives”.

Nicos Serghides, President of the Organisation of Relatives of Missing Persons in Cyprus, has stated that having the Committee of Ministers monitoring the issue provides an additional leverage on Turkey, forcing it to cooperate.

Serghides said the Turkish delegation at the CoE is trying to present an image of Ankara’s almost full compliance with the Court’s decisions, which, he said, is not entirely true.

In particular, Serghides said that Turkey continues to hamper the work of the Committee of Missing Persons, for example by not disclosing pieces of information it possesses or by not allowing free access to research and excavation teams in military zones in the Turkish-occupied areas of Cyprus. Moreover, Ankara does not share information on locations where bones were transferred after being exhumed from their original burial point.

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.