President urges refugees to stay away from north property commission

PRESIDENT DEMETRIS Christofias yesterday urged Greek Cypriot refugees to “ignore” the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) in the north, saying that mass recourse to the commission would only harm the country politically.

Speaking during a press conference on his two years in power, the president was asked to comment on the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) latest decision to recognise the IPC as an effective domestic remedy.

“I don’t think mass appeals (to the IPC) will benefit the place politically, they would rather harm,” he said, adding, “My own call is for people to ignore the ‘commission’.”

Christofias said he had warned many times in the past that Cyprus could only be solved through a political solution. “Unfortunately some people created the impression to the Cypriot people, particularly the refugees, that the property issue could be solved through legal means,” he said.

The president said that mass appeals to the ECHR have harmed Cyprus’ cause. “We’ve been warned by the ECHR directly and indirectly” that it had other problems to deal with and could not just focus on Cypriot property rights. “We didn’t take this into account,” he said.

Christofias highlighted that the ECHR decision means that “with the passage of time, the current users (of property) acquire rights and tomorrow, the balance between rights of users and real owners may change in favour of the users.”

“The remedy is one, a solution to the Cyprus problem as soon as possible.”

Regarding the Shacolas Group suing Turkey in a Cyprus court, Christofias said when he heard this “my hair stood on end”.

“I am very afraid we will have another (legal) boomerang,” he said, noting that the poor would not be found in court. “To say the truth, it is the haves and the have-a-lots that make appeals. Unfortunately, at some point we should restrain ourselves a little.”