Three villages’ cry for help
REPRESENTATIVES of the refugee Turkish Cypriot populations of Morphou, Lyssi and Yialousa say their people are close to breaking point as a result of continued uncertainty over their rights to inhabit the three settlements.
If the UN-proposed Annan plan had been accepted by both communities in April’s referendum, Morphou and Lyssi were to have been handed over to Greek Cypriot administration while the original Greek Cypriot population of Yialousa was to be allowed to return under Turkish Cypriot rule.
“I am scared that anarchy could break out here if something is not done soon. I don’t know how much more patience our people have,” the Morphou (Guzelyurt) District Development Association head Hakan Kuntay told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
His comments followed a meeting in Yialousa on Wednesday in which representatives of the three districts gathered to discuss falling morale and economic stagnation among their populations.
“One day there is going to be a solution, and most likely it will be based on proposals put forward by de Cueller, Galli and Annan which see the Turkish side giving up land. This means people will have to be relocated,” Kuntay said, adding that a continuation of the current situation could cause civil unrests that would hinder efforts to find a peaceful solution to the island’s division.
Lyssi (Akdogan) Solution and Solidarity Association (ACDD) leader Cengiz Alp said that since his village was put on the list of places to be handed over to the Greek Cypriot side the community had fallen into decline and that no investment had been made in the area.
“As time goes on, our area is getting more and more depressed. It is becoming like a ghost town,” he said.
Head of the Tyllirian Association (DD) Erdogan Ozbalikci representing the people of Yialousa (Yenierenkoy) called for a legal solution to the problem saying, “The Annan plan proposed a solution, but if that cannot be implemented, we have for find other legal ways around the problem.
One way or another, the rights of our people have to be protected”.
He added that some Turkish Cypriots living in Yialousa wished to return to their pre-1974 homes in the Tylliria region in the west of Cyprus, but wished to remain in Yialousa, but wanted to do so on a legal basis.
All three representatives called on the EU and the international community to help find a way out of the current crisis.
“Where is the EU? Where is the international community? We said ‘yes’ to the Annan plan and it is we who are being forced to suffer?” Kuntay asked.
“People in Morphou cannot live like normal people any more. No one even paints the walls of their houses because we can’t call the buildings we live in our own,” he added.
As well as in the international community, he called on the north’s ‘government’ to devise a policy on the issue.
“We can’t go along with {Mehmet Ali] Talat’s policy of waiting and keeping quiet so that Turkey gets a date [for the start of accession negotiations] from the EU. We showed our willingness to make sacrifices for peace through our yes vote to the Annan plan, but now our patience has run out,” Kuntay said.
“The rest of the island continues life normally, buying properties, upgrading their houses, but we can only sit back and watch.”
He added that those who said the Annan plan was dead were sentencing around 50,000 Turkish Cypriots to “another ten or 30 years of purgatory”.
“All the plans put forward for territorial adjustment by the UN have foreseen Morphou being transferred to the Greek Cypriot side, so people here see it as a matter of time before we have to move,” said Kuntay.
The three representative say they are on the verge of beginning a high-profile campaign to raise the international community’s awareness of their plight, beginning with a press briefing next week.
