Scandal judgment of
European Court of Human Rights
against Turkey
by Ralph Kratzer
I just read the article on a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Turkey. How one-sided, unfair and shameful is this!
It’s a scandal! What’s about all the Turkish Cypriots who lost their property in the South? What about the thousands of them who lost their lives by the EOKA terrorists, the Greek Cypriot militia and the Greek army in the decades prior to 1974!
The history is been bent just as it suits to the Greek Cypriots! And the EU thinks this is quite right!
I’m ashamed now to have a German passport, and thus to be a member of the so-called European Union! Turkey, please forget your joining this elitist and snooty “club” and North Cyprus, forget the reunification! P.S. This is just my personal opinion!
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled for Turkey to pay 90 million euros in compensation to Cyprus for the Turkish military’s 1974 intervention in one of the largest judgments in its history.
30 million euros of the compensation package would be reserved for the missing Greek Cypriots and distributed to their living relatives, while 60 million euros in damages will be paid for “the enclaved Greek-Cypriot residents of the Karpas peninsula,” according to the ECHR ruling.
Europe’s top human rights court said the passage of time did not erase responsibility in the case and ordered Turkey to pay the compensation in 18 months.
The heaviest compensation ruling up to today came when the ECHR ruled for Turkey to pay 13 million euros over Ankara’s violations of the Greek Cypriots’ property rights in 2009.
Some analysts have suggested that the latest record compensation ruling may affect the fragile ongoing peace process in Cyprus.
Negotiators from each side of the divided island restarted talks on Feb. 27 by embarking on visits to guarantor powers Turkey and Greece and holding meetings on the fresh reunification talks.
Negotiators Andreas Mavroyiannis for the Greek Cypriot side and Kudret Özersay for the Turkish Cypriot side made reciprocal visits to Ankara and Athens, respectively, for the first time in 55 years.
Before the announcement of the latest verdict, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had said the ECHR’s ruling would “neither be binding nor be carrying any value” for Ankara.
“This case has been put on the agenda again after 10 years,” Davutoğlu had said, arguing that a negative ruling would be “unsuitable for the psychological atmosphere of the Cyprus peace negotiations, which were started with Turkey’s leadership and which recently accelerated.”
The Turkish military intervention in Cyprus in 1974, following a coup that brought a hardline Greek administration to power on the island, resulted in the division of Cyprus and led to decades of scarce contact. Greek Cypriots rejected a peace plan in 2004 shortly after Cyprus had joined the EU as a member, even as the Turkish community agreed to establish a new partnership with the Greek Cypriots.
In 2001, the ECHR had ruled against Turkey’s 1974 intervention, but refrained from issuing a verdict on compensations at the time.