UNFICYP said yesterday that a wall being built by Turkish troops in the mixed village of Pyla was a violation of the status quo, adding it had raised the issue with the Turkish Cypriot side.
Reports surfaced earlier this week about the construction of a wall in front of a Turkish observation post in the UN-controlled buffer-zone village in the Larnaca district, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots have remained side by side since 1974.
The government protested against the construction on Wednesday and made representations to the UN. Neither side is allowed to change the status quo in or around the island’s 180-km buffer zone.
“The UN considers it as a permanent violation and strongly protested this activity at a high level,” an UNFICYP spokesman told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. “We are monitoring the situation and we are in touch with both sides,” he added.
Andreas Pentaras, Colonel with the Defence Ministry, told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) earlier in the week that “the Turks have constructed a 15-metre long and 1.5 metre high wall in front of one of their observation posts, on a hill overlooking the village.”
He said the National Guard and the Defence Ministry had made representations to UNFICYP because the wall was a violation of the status quo in the area.
Pentaras said that there had not been any reports about additional movements or reinforcements of the Turkish occupation forces in the area.
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.
