Legal Panel To Report On Turkey/Cyprus Property Rights Cases

by Lorys Charalambous, Tax-News.com, Cyprus

15 August 2003

According to local press reports, a panel of three foreign legal professors will report to the Cypriot government in September their preliminary findings on the issue of Greek Cypriots' property rights in the northern half of the island.

The central concern that the legal panel will address is the Turkish claim that there are domestic remedies to be exhausted by the Greek Cypriots before a case is referred to the European Court of Human Rights.

'There is a specific plan of action on this score but we are not going to announce any decisions taken in relation to Turkey's attempts to convince the European Court that there are domestic remedies that should be exhausted before people apply to the Court in Strasbourg,' the Fianacial Mirror quoted Foreign Minister Giorgos Iakovou as announcing this week.

Turkey is at present under pressure to compensate Greek Cypriots who have forfeited property in the occupied North. Referring to the case of the 18 Greek Cypriots who have applied to a supposed compensation commission in the North, the Foreign Minister said: 'We have to fight this battle and stress that the 'courts' and the 'commission' in occupied Cyprus are illegal. No citizen of any country should be expected to apply to a regime and its institutions which the UN Security Council has branded legally invalid.'

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