In his column in the Greek Cypriot "Sunday Mail" daily on September 12, Greek Cypriot journalist Loucas G. Charalambous stated that Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadapoulos’ claim that ‘no Turkish Cypriots were killed’ was a blatant lie. Charalambous said: "Which leads me to deduce two of many things: either our President is a liar or he is suffering from an illness that causes memory loss".

In his column Charalambous said the Greek Cypriot ‘Politis’ daily reported that Papadopoulos claimed no Turkish Cypriots were killed between 1963-74 and had accused the Greek Cypriot leader of being a liar.

Giving coverage to Papadopoulos’ interview with Mohammed Galadari, the publisher of the United Arab Emirates based English language newspaper the ‘Khaleej Times’, Charalambous said Galadari upon reminding Papadopoulos that during the 11-years between 1963-74 lots of massacres occurred and when the Turkish troops came they saved them from further violence and that if they hadn’t come all of them might have been killed, Papadopoulos had responded by saying: " In 1963 we asked to increase the police patrols, but they refused. From 1963 to 1974, how many Turkish Cypriots were killed? The answer is none".

Continuing, Charalambous said: "We should resist the temptation to laugh at this response by the President. The situation might be more serious than what it seems and it would be wrong to laugh at it. I did not have time to read my archives so as to give you a relatively accurate number of Turkish Cypriots (or of Greek Cypriots) who were killed between 1963 and 1974. I will just remind you that during this period, there were bloody clashes in Masoura-Tylliria (Erenkoy), in Lefka-Ambelikou, in Trypimeni (Tirmen), in Arsos (Yigitler), in Mari (Tatlýsu) and in Kophinou (Gecitkale) - Ayios Theodoros (Bogazici).

In Kophinou (Gecitkale) alone, UNFICYP had counted by 10am on November 15, as was reported by Brigadier Michael Harbottle in his book "The Impartial Soldier". If my memory serves me well, the total number of Turkish Cypriots killed during this period, either in clashes with the National Guard or in isolated incidents exceed 600.