no chapter would be provisionally closed
until the Commission has confirmed that Turkey has fully implemented its
commitments with respect to the Additional Protocol. The Commission also
called for the start of the comprehensive negotiations in Cyprus under the
supervision of the UN in 2007.
President Mehmet Ali Talat received
Turkish Ambassador to Lefkosa whose term of office ended yesterday and
evaluated the EU Commission’s recommendation during the meeting.
Pointing out that the EU Commission made
an unjust evaluation, President Talat said that the Commission had proved
that while giving this decision it was under the influence of the Greek
Cypriot administration and even a "slave" of it.
"It is the EU itself who promised to
lift the isolations", said the President and added that the Commission was
responsible for keeping this promise.
Pointing to the fact that the EU forgot
its promises after accepting the Greek Cypriot side as its full member,
President Talat said instead of strengthening the Turkish Cypriots’
economy and lifting the isolations, requesting Turkey to lift its
restrictions which are very limited against the Greek Cypriot side and
putting this as a precondition, was not understandable.
Stating that the Commission’s
recommendation was full of preconditions, Talat said the Commission put
preconditions for the opening of new chapters and the closing of the
opened ones. Talat expressed hope that the Commission would soon make a
healthier evaluation and get rid of the views imposed by the Greek Cypriot
side.
President Talat drawing attention to the
fact that the situation in Cyprus, which was not normal, was presented as
normal and Turkey was under pressure to accept this, said this was very
wrong and expressed his disappointment against the recommendation.
MISSING PERSONS COMMITTEE TO
DELIVER REMAINS OF THE MISSING TO THEIR RELATIVES IN 2007
The third member of the Autonomous
Missing Persons Committee Swedish Christophe Girod and Luis Fondebrieder,
the Coordinator of EAAF (Argentinean Forensic Anthropology Team), which
has been carrying out the anthropological and archeological studies for
missing persons, yesterday made statements to the Cyprus Turkish News
Agency (TAK) regarding the Anthropology Laboratory established in the UN-controlled
buffer zone and the studies for identifying the identities of the missing
persons.
Luis Fondebrieder stated that during the
studies for excavations, identity identification and returning the remains
to the relatives of the missing persons, which had started in August, the
remains belonging to 70 missing persons had been found so far and 60 out
of this had been analyzed in the laboratory, but added that the DNA tests
on the remains had not yet been completed.
On the other hand, the third member of
the Missing Persons Committee Christophe Girod announced that the remains
of identified persons would be returned to their families starting from
the beginning of 2007.
Girod said that both sides have provided
financial and political support to the works of the Committee and pointed
out that until today they announced 1468 Greek Cypriot and 502 Turkish
Cypriot missing persons.
Meanwhile, Jeniffer Wright, the
assistant of Christophe Girod, stated that an agreement had been reached
with the Cyprus Neurology and Genetic Laboratory in South Lefkosa on
carrying the DNA tests and said the agreement will be implemented under
the observation of a Turkish Cypriot and a Greek Cypriot expert.
