Council of Europe meeting on missing persons

Discussions began on Tuesday at the Council of Europe (CoE) Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg on the issue of missing persons in Cyprus.

Turkey recently circulated a memorandum at the CoE, reiterating its previous call for access to be granted in military sites in the government-controlled areas as “places where there is credible evidence that there are remains belonging to reported missing persons”.

The Turkish claims were seen in Cyprus and Greece as trying to shift responsibility while Ankara itself has failed to implement decisions by the European Court of Human Rights implicating Turkey as a respondent state in missing persons cases.

The CoE discussions will go on until Thursday in order to examine implementation of human rights judgments, which included the issue of missing persons. The representatives of the 47 member states of the CoE will examine the implementation of the ECHR judgments, including the final judgment on Cyprus v. Turkey, the case of Varnava and others concerning the fate of Greek Cypriots who disappeared during the 1974 Turkish invasion.

The implementation of a 2013 judgment concerning the unlawful detention of asylum seekers by Cyprus will also be examined.

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.