Sir, - On behalf of Turkish Cypriots I am writing to say how saddened we were to read the article on Cyprus by Julia Langdon (The Irish Times, August 6th).
What concerns us most is that there was absolutely no mention of the missing Turkish Cypriots, who form a higher percentage of our population than on the Greek side.
Our bereavement goes back at least as far as Christmas 1963 when the numerically superior Greek Cypriots made a full-scale armed attack upon our civilian population. This was not war, but a premeditated assault upon defenceless women, children and old men. The attacks were repeated in 1964, 1967 and again in 1974. Since 1974 we have lived in peace under the protection of the Turkish army. From the foundation of the republic in 1960 to 15th July 1974, all the civilian casualties were Turkish Cypriots.
There are 803 Turkish Cypriot missing persons. A number of mass graves have been found, but many have no known grave. Their families have been encouraged by our leadership to accept that they are dead and to put their grief behind them.
No human tragedy has been the subject of such blatant political exploitation as the Greek Cypriot missing persons. On March 3rd 1996, the Greek Cypriot Cypriot Mail wrote: "Greek Cypriot governments have found it convenient to conceal the scale of atrocities during the [Greek v Greek] coup of 1974 in an attempt to blame the Turks. The shocking admission by the Clerides government that there are people in Nicosia cemetery who are still on the list of the `missing' is the last episode of a human drama which has been turned into a propaganda tool." Amazing as it may seem, Andreas Mayas (Missing Person no. 572) is alive and receiving a state pension!
On October 19th, 1996 Mr George Lanitis wrote: "I was serving with the Foreign Information Service in London . . . I deeply apologise to those I told that there are 1,619 missing persons. I was made a liar, deliberately, by the Government of Cyprus . . . Not it seems that the credibility of Cyprus is nil."
On April 17th, 1991 US Ambassador Ladsky testified before the Senate that "most of the missing persons disappeared in the first days of July 1974 (i.e. before the Turkish intervention on the 20th). Many were killed in fighting between Greek Cypriot supporters of Makarios and Sampson."
Very few Greek Cypriot civilians died in the subsequent fighting with the Turkish army, but nobody at all would have died if the Greek Cypriots and Greece had not tried to exterminate the Turkish Cypriots and annex the island to Greece. The blame for their deaths must rest firmly upon their own leadership.
Greek Cypriot prisoners of war were sent to Turkey, where they were visited by the Red Cross, and repatriated on August 8th, 1974; September 16th 1974, and October 28th, 1975 under international supervision. There are no prisoners now in Turkey, but allegations continue to be made.
On April 17th, 1991 US Ambassador Ledsky told the Senate: "The US Ambassador to Turkey has looked into all these allegations and found there was no substance. The Turkish Government was co-operative and the Turkish and US Governments worked together on this. The subject has been exhausted and we haven't even heard an allegation in two years."
The Committee on Missing Persons, comprising a Turkish Cypriot, a Greek Cypriot, and a Swiss member appointed by the UN, was established in July 1981; 169 cases have been submitted to them from both sides and the Turkish Cypriot and Turkish authorities have given their full co-operation.
However, in a letter dated July 18th, 1988, the then British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe said: "One stumbling block is the Greek Cypriot insistence on physical evidence of death. Unfortunately this is not available so long after the event. Unless this problem can be resolved in some way, it is likely that the Committee will report that no agreed conclusions are possible."
The Greek Cypriots' insistence, after more than 20 years, on the production of a body before they will consider a case closed, makes it doubful that they have any genuine interest in assisting the Committee on Missing Persons to complete its work. The question of missing persons will never be resolved, because the Greek Cypriot leadership wishes to keep it alive for political reasons. - Yours, etc., Hakki Muftuzade,
London Representative,
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,
Bedford Square,
London WC1.