Erdogan’s call for Varosha refugees to return, is contrary to Ankara’s official position, lawyer says
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s call on Varosha refugees to return to their properties is contrary to his government’s position the Council of Europe (CoE), which consistently denies restitution to the applicants, advocate Achilleas Demetriades has said.
Demetriades, who represents Greek Cypriot applicants in the “Xenides-Arestis” group of 33 cases versus Turkey, sent a letter to the CoE’s Secretariat of the Committee of Ministers, ahead of its meeting, between December 1 and 3.
In it, he notes that the Turkish president “did in fact visit Varosha for a ‘picnic’ on 15 November 2020, despite the rainstorm and in breach of UN Security Council Resolutions.”
“lnterestingly,” Demetriades said, Erdogan called upon the inhabitants of Varosha (including some of the abovementioned applicants) to return to their properties. “Clearly, this appears to be contrary to the position of the respondent before the Committee of Ministers which consistently denies restitution to the applicants.”
Demetriades also referred to statements by the spokesperson of Turkey’s foreign ministry Hami Aksoy, who, last week, in response to a statements by the EU High Representative Joseph Borrell on the Cyprus issue, said, inter alia, “UN Security Council resolutions do not prevail over property rights … “.
“lt is this “supremacy of property rights” that the applicants want to share with the Committee of Ministers as additional evidence of the a la carte approach to Human Rights by the respondent (Turkey),” Demetriades said in his letter.
This, he said, relates to Turkey’s failure to give restitution to the applicants for their properties both in Varosha and occupied Cyprus as a matter of individual measures, and their continuing failure to pay the just satisfaction awarded to these cases.
He added that his clients repeat their request to the Committee of Ministers to serve formal notice and proceed to vote and refer the matter to the court accordingly.
Turkey refuses to pay the damages awarded by the European Court of Human Rights to the Xenides-Arestis group of Greek Cypriot refugees for their properties in the Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus.
The Committee of Ministers had adopted interim resolutions, strongly urging Turkey to pay the just satisfaction awarded by the European Court. In the majority of these cases, the applicants or their representatives have addressed the Committee of Ministers on several occasions to complain about the lack of payment of the just satisfaction awarded to them.