Turkish Cypriots donate blood for identification of missing

SCORES OF Turkish Cypriots have come forward to give blood to help in the identification of remains exhumed in the government-controlled areas.
”I can confirm that Turkish Cypriots living in the occupied areas have come forward to give blood. There is a great interest on the part of the Turkish Cypriots and already scores of them have applied to various departments to get information about their relatives and to give blood for the identification of remains,” said Nicos Theodosiou, president of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Persons.
Speaking after a meeting with President Tassos Papadopoulos, Theodosiou said the President assured committee members of his personal involvement and dedication to following developments.
”We had a very useful, very good and positive meeting and we shall work together to solve this problem,” Theodosiou said.
Over the past three years, the government has exhumed remains from two local cemeteries with a view to identifying them and returning them to the families concerned. So far more than 100 remains have been identified, some belonging to Greek Cypriot soldiers, others to Greek nationals and others to Greek Cypriot civilians.
The government has appealed to Turkish Cypriots to give blood to facilitate DNA identification.
Relatives of the Turkish Cypriots listed as missing were unable to cross to give blood samples before the opening of the checkpoints on April 23.
Last week Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash proposed establishing his own DNA bank in the north where they could make their own identifications. At the same time Greek Cypriot papers were reporting that people from the south had resorted to making their own enquiries on trips to the north.
The United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) has just completed a comprehensive report based on its archives and will shortly hand it over to both sides.
In July 1997 then President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash agreed to exchange information on missing persons and the location of mass graves on each side but the deal fell through six months later when the Turkish Cypriot side questioned the number of people, 1,619, on the Greek Cypriot list.
The Turkish Cypriot side also claims a number of missing persons, between 300 and 500 from 1963-1974 and each side has since claimed that the other has inflated the figures to score political points in the international community.

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