President’s office issues statement on missing persons

The Office of the President said on Tuesday that the Greek Cypriot police refrained from filing cases against perpetrators identified by the families of Turkish Cypriot missing persons.

According to a statement issued by the President’s Office, President Ersin Tatar informed members of the UN’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances visiting the island that the majority of missing Turkish Cypriots had been abducted or forcefully taken by Greek Cypriot police or militia from their workplaces, hospitals and homes between 1963 and 1974.

It said that Tatar had also told them that more Turkish Cypriots had gone missing in 1974 while almost all Greek Cypriot missing persons were made up of Greek Cypriot soldiers.

The statement added that the reason why the mass grave at Atlılar had still not been opened by the Committee on Missing Persons was because of the preventative efforts of the Greek Cypriot side.

The Office of the President said that the working group in its first findings published on April 12 had called for faster progress to fulfil the rights of the relatives of the missing and to “depoliticise the issue of missing persons in Cyprus and genuinely treat it as a human rights and humanitarian issue,”

The statement expressed the hope that the report to be prepared by the group and presented by the UN Human Rights Council will contribute to encouraging the Greek Cypriot side to fulfil its responsibilities concerning Turkish Cypriot missing persons.

It also said that the Turkish Cypriot side had reiterated its readiness with all its institutions to launch work on undocumented migrants.