A DRAFT report by the European Parliament Petition Committee has caused an uproar among Cypriot politicians after apparently shifting blame for the abandoned city of Famagusta from the Turkish army to the Greek Cypriots.
Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis said the draft report was “unacceptable” and has requested its withdrawal. Cypriot European parliamentarians rounded up to describe it as “scandalous” and “unacceptable”, while Famagusta Mayor Alexis Galanos said he was shocked, saddened and angered by its contents.
A Committee delegation visited Cyprus in November 2007 on a fact-finding mission following efforts by the Famagusta Refugees Movement for the city to return to its lawful inhabitants.
Famagusta has been occupied and sealed off by the Turkish army since the 1974 invasion and remains to this day an uninhabited ‘ghost town’, apart from the odd buildings used to house Turkish army top brass.
The text of the draft report refers to Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat as “the President of the Turkish Cypriot Authorities” and the invasion as the “Turkish intervention”. In its conclusions, the report states Famagusta cannot be returned to its lawful inhabitants before a comprehensive solution of the Cyprus problem.
“We have read the unacceptable contents of this report and we immediately made representations demanding its withdrawal,” Marcoullis said, pointing out that the current text is “by no means” the final text. The minister noted that “it was entirely drafted by a member of the Committee’s Secretariat”.
Marcoullis said both the Cypriot government and Cypriot MEPs were making representations not only to the Committee members who visited Cyprus but also to the other Committee members.
Meanwhile Famagusta Mayor, Alexis Galanos expressed regret over the content of the draft report.
“Instead of dealing with the illegal presence of the Turkish occupation forces on European territory, instead of examining the rights Famagusta’s European citizens, it deals with matters relating to the solution of the Cyprus problem, a matter that, with all due respect, does not fall within the competencies of the Committee,” he said.
MEPs Panayiotis Demetriou and Ioannis Kasoulides described the distribution of the draft report as “scandalous” as those Committee members who were part of the fact-finding mission did not get a chance to approve it first.
The two said the draft report had gone beyond the remit of the mission. Demetriou said he had got in touch with Committee members who belonged to the European People’s Party and they had agreed to seek its withdrawal and find out who was responsible for its drafting.
The MEP referred to the “unacceptable logic” that the non-return of Famagusta’s inhabitants was the result of the rejection of the Annan plan. He demanded the removal of the draft report’s author from the Secretariat of the Committee of Petitions.
MEP Yiannakis Matsis wrote to the Committee Chairman, arguing that the draft report was offering Turkey a ‘clean criminal record’. The draft did not even refer to the fact Famagusta was a ‘ghost city’ or that lawful inhabitants have no access to it due to the illegal presence of Turkish troops.
On the contrary, Turkish positions are adopted that the inhabitants cannot return until a comprehensive solution is found through the UN, said Matsakis.
MEP Marios Matsakis said the draft report, “like many other reports of the European Parliament, has a tendency to adopt British-Turkish positions”.
The presidential candidate said this has been going on since 2004 and as a result, Cypriot MEPs have a hard time trying to correct all the texts which show the Greek Cypriot side in an unfavourable light.
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