Greek & Cypriot Ambassadors to UN Stress Turkish Violations of Human Rights

United Nations.- (ANA/P. Panagiotou)
No comprehensive, functional and viable solution to the Cyprus problem can be achieved without the withdrawal of all foreign troops form the island, the reaffirmation of the just state, and the implementation of the rules of protection of human rights, and the international community needed to do everything it could to win that wager, Greece’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, ambassador Nikos Matsis, said Wednesday, addressing the UN 60th General Assembly’s Third Committee on the theme “Human Rights Issues, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

“As in the past, our intervention refers exclusively to the human rights situation in Cyprus. The heads of state and government, when they met in New York for the summit meeting, reaffirmed our devotion to the UN Charter, to a world order based on international law and on the protection and advancement of human rights, the just state and democracy. The also acknowledged that these principles comprise interconnected and mutually reinforcing elements of the universal and indivisible fundamental values and principles of the UN,” Matsis said.

He said that as long as a large section of Cyprus’ territory remained under the control of the Turkish armed forces, “this commitment, as well as the relevant resolutions of the UN and the European Court of Human Rights, cannot be implemented in Cyprus”.

The military invasion and subsequent occupation of 37 percent of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus by Turkey led to constant violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cyprus, including violations of the rights of the displaced persons, the rights of the enclaved persons in the occupied northern sector of Cyprus, the rights of the relatives of the missing persons, and the loss of ownership of the legal proprietors, as pointed out in the relevant reports by the UN secretary general and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, he said, adding that “this fact causes intense concern in my country”.

He further expressed “serious concern” over the human rights of the enclaved in the northern sector of Cyprus given that, of the 20,000 Greek Cypriots who chose to remain in their ancestral homes, in the occupied area, following the Turkish invasion, fewer than 522 had managed to remain there.

He said the European Court of Human Rights, in its ruling vis-a-vis the case of Cyprus vs. Turkey of May 10, 2001, found Turkey guilty of 14 violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, adding that seven of those violations concerned the living conditions of the enclaved Greek Cypriots and were related to freedom of thought, expression, conscience and religion, the right to education, the right to peaceful enjoyment of proprietorship, and the right of respect of the private and family life.

“Acknowledging the recent positive measures taken by the occupation regime regarding the operation of a Greek-language school of higher education in the occupied sector, we stress that there are still very many things that must be done,” he said, adding that “Turkey must enact the said resolution and restore the fundamental human rights of the enclaved”.

Matsis said that, with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the occupation forces displaced nearly one third of the island’s population from their ancestral homes and denied them the right to return and to peacefully enjoy the rights of their proprietorship.

In the case of Loizidou vs. Turkey (1996, 1998), the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey, as an occupation force, was responsible for the loss of proprietorship by the legal owner, he said, adding that this had been reaffirmed in the ensuing rulings, the most recent being that of the case of Xenides-Arestes of April 2005.

In that framework, the Greek envoy concluded, the excessive construction activity in the occupied sector, in Greek Cypriot properties, and the illegal sale of Greek Cypriot properties to foreigners, causes grave concern.

ANDREAS MAVROYIANNIS
Cyprus has had the unenviable privilege of occupying the attention of the UN Security Council for many years but regrettably, Turkish political expediencies and the sheer lapse of time seem to have diverted attention from the human rights dimension of the issue, which actually lies at the heart of it, Cyprus’ Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Andreas Mavroyiannis said in his own address to the Third Committee at the 60th Session of the General Assembly.

He said that no definitive remedy to the persistent violations of human rights in Cyprus by Turkey can be envisaged without termination of the artificial partition of the island, which has been imposed along ethnic lines and in full contradiction both to the island’s traditionally multi-ethnic character and to the will of the Cypriot people.

Mavroyiannis stressed that no settlement can be achieved without the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The rule of law and application of individual human rights standards must be an integral element of any comprehensive, functional and sustainable solution to the Cyprus issue, he added.

Ever since Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974, he said, nearly one third of the island’s population have been illegally and arbitrarily deprived of their property rights, and forcibly displaced from their ancestral abodes.

The occupation forces have constantly denied them the right to return and peacefully enjoy their properties and possessions ever since.

Colonization with settlers from Turkey, destruction of the cultural heritage and a systematic policy of denial of basic human rights have been the consistent pattern of behavior of the occupying forces ever since.

The responsibility and the obligations of Turkey in this matter, he said, have been repeatedly and clearly affirmed by a series of rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.

The continuing occupation of the northern part of Cyprus, he added, affects not only those who were forcibly expelled from their homes but also those who remained enclaved in their land under the control of the Turkish army and Turkey’s subordinate administration.

He, too, pointed out that the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey responsible for fourteen violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, seven of which concern the living conditions of the enclaved Greek-Cypriots in the occupied part of Cyprus.

These violations, he concluded, relate to the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the freedom of expression, the right to education, the right to peaceful enjoyment of one’s property, and the right to respect of one’s private and family life.