Committees start and ECHR ruling on property

The 13 Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot working groups and technical committees the thirteen committees and groups convened on Tuesday. Mr Iacovou said that “everything went well” and it was a meeting “for acquaintance purposes”. He added that hey began discussing the issues, reviewed them and expressed their initial positions and expressed the belief that from now on things will go rather quickly. He also said UN representatives were present in the meetings of all the groups and committees. The next meeting will be held on Thursday 24 April, and the meeting after that is scheduled for next Tuesday, after the Orthodox Easter on 27 April.

The Cyprus Mail reports that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Turkey must pay €835,000 to the family of John Demades for the loss of use of his Kyrenia property. Failure to do so within six months will result in an eight per cent interest rate on the total amount for every year delayed. Turkey has three months within which to appeal the decision otherwise it must pay the amount within three months. greeted the ruling as “The judgement is of great importance because it reaffirms [Titina] Loizidou and [Myra Xenides] Arestis’ ownership and only deals with the compensation for loss of use of property and not expropriation,” the family’s lawyer Achilleas Demetriades said.According to the ruling: “…displaced Greek Cypriots, like the applicant, cannot be deemed to have lost title to their property and the compensation to be awarded by this Court in such cases is confined to losses emanating from the denial of access and loss of control, use and enjoyment of his property.” The judgement specifically refers to the cases of Loizidou and Xenides-Arestis. In those cases the ECHR awarded the applicants £230,000 plus costs and €850,000 plus costs, respectively. Loizidou finally received payment in 2003 of more than £640,000 (due to interests added to the total amount because of Turkey’s failure to pay up when the judgement was finalised in 1998) and the Xenides-Arestis case is still pending. In this case, the ECHR awarded Demades €785,000 for lose of use of property, €45,000 in moral damages and €5,000 for expenses. This was almost double the amount Turkey had put on the table several years ago and did not involve expropriation, Demetriades said. Although Demades himself died in September 2006, his family decided to reject Turkey’s offer and to stand firm with its claim.“This is significant because we can claim the properties and only get compensation for rents lost because we believe that in light of a Cyprus problem solution we will get those properties back,” Demetriades said.Xenides-Arestis’ property is in the fenced off city of Varosha and Demades’ is in a military zone; in case of a settlement, the army would pull out, effectively freeing up the property for return to its rightful owners.

Demetriades said the ECHR had also accepted the Greek Cypriot side’s property evaluator, Andreas Pantazis, rather than Turkey’s evaluation of the Kyrenia residence. The latter had attempted to undervalue the land, claiming the property was located in a military zone and used by the Turkish army and thus was of lower value. “This trilogy of cases concludes the first cycle of property compensation cases,” he said. From now on, he said, it could be taken as a given that the ECHR recognised Greek Cypriot refugees as the rightful owners of their properties and that what it dealt with was compensation for loss of use in rents of that property since 1987. In 1987, Turkey started accepting claims from individuals on property issues at the ECHR. The year coincides with Ankara’s formal application to join the European Union.“In the past, something like this would have been unheard of. Now what is interesting about this case is that it’s as if we are now talking about property as if it was in Nicosia,” said Demetriades.Furthermore, in its judgement the court did not deal with the “property commission” set up in the occupied areas. “This matter will be taken on in eight cases that have so designated and for which Turkey has been given until June 30 to provide its comments on the set up in the occupied areas and its effectiveness,” he said.“Also the court has frozen all remaining cases other than 32 which have already been declared admissible and for which the pleadings have closed and we are awaiting judgement,” Demetriades concluded. Meanwhile in a separate case, the ECHR yesterday formally accepted the friendly settlement between Greek Cypriot refugee Mike Tymvios and Turkey, without making reference to the north’s “property commission”. Ankara will pay Tymvios $1 million in exchange for his land.

Government Spokesman Stephanos Stephanou said that the government would be studying all the implications of the decision of the ECHR on the Mike Tymvios case together with its legal advisor, the Attorney General. Regarding the Demades case he said the ECHR is going in the right direction. The spokesman added that separate aspects of the Cyprus problem, as would be the property issue, cannot be solved on their own through the courts. The Cyprus problem as a whole can only be solved through comprehensive negotiations leading to a mutually acceptable settlement.

Kibris reports that T/C legal circles evaluated the decision of the ECHR on the Mike Tymvios case as “a great defeat for the Greek Cypriot administration” and as acceptance of the “Immovable Property Commission” by the ECHR. Halkin Sesi’s headline reads “Slap to the Greek Cypriots by the ECHR”. The paper notes that legal circles said that with this decision the ECHR accepted the “Commission” as a local remedy and it is important in that it sets a precedent.Turkish Cypriot papers also cover the ECHR ruling on the Demades case.

AKEL and DISY hit back at criticism of the government’s choice of appointees to sit on the working groups and technical committees. DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades said the appointees were highly capable individuals and able to handle the issues at hand. Replying to criticism that they consisted of supporters of the Annan plan, he said people could not be judged based on their position “in a democratic procedure, which, according to the regulations of democracy, had the right to take a positive or negative position in the referendum”. What was important was whether they could be of service to the country, which he believed they could.AKEL spokesman Nicos Katsourides said every party had a right to its opinion. But he agreed that it was wrong to judge individuals based on positions they’d taken in the past. He also said it would be hard to find an individual who had not taken a stand during the April 2004 referendum and that public figures in particular had to do so on such a critical issue. He also pointed out that a number of people who had been advisers or participants under the previous government were also involved now. House president Marios Karoyan said he had reiterated DIKO’s reservations regarding the appointments at a meeting he had yesterday with President Christofias. Nevertheless he said what counted was that none of the 13 teams would do anything with which Christofias disagreed. “The president is the one who will control, examine and know what policy will emerge from these working groups and what they will take,” he said.

Editorials
The Cyprus Mail says that the supporters of the previous president’s sterile policy on the Cyprus problem are finding it increasingly difficult to come to terms with the progress made in the few weeks since Christofias election. They are confused about what stand to take about the developments, after four years of extolling Papadopoulos’ negativity and the resultant lack of movement, all of which they unanimously blamed on the Turkish side. This world of certainty, which provided the anti-settlement politicians with an easy and undemanding professional life, has been shattered by Christofias’ determination to make things happen. The new approach has been welcomed by the international community and re-kindled the UN’s interest in undertaking a new peace initiative, something the former Papadopoulos cheerleaders cannot openly oppose without running the risk of being lambasted as champions of partition. Nor can they attack the president for agreeing to the establishment of the technical and working committees after they had spent the last 18 months calling for the implementation of the July 8 agreement. Now the leaders of DIKO, EDEK and EUROKO have got what they wanted, they cannot exactly turn around and criticise Christofias for satisfying their demand. They needed to find new ways of attacking the procedure so first they objected to the three-month time-frame. Then, they objected to the composition of the committees, claiming that the majority of the G/Cs heading the committees were “sworn promoters and zealots of the Annan plan”, as if this constituted a crime. The president’s choice of people for the committees and working groups was excellent. Most are proven professionals and technocrats who will, hopefully, engage in imaginative problem-solving rather than negotiating a settlement. They will try to find ways of bridging differences on a range of issues with their Turkish Cypriot counterparts and their proposals would be made available to the two leaders once negotiations begin. The committees will try to find compromises for long-standing differences as well as come up with suggestions, at technical committee level, for co-operation on a range of matters. Only if Christofias did not want any progress would he have appointed members of DIKO and EDEK on the committees. But times have changed. The era of negativity, when we were pursuing stalemate or deadlock, belongs to the past. And the party leaders who pursued the Papadopoulos philosophy must realise that in the new era there is no place for moaning minnies.

Alecos Constantinides writing in Alithia says that Diko and Edek have so far disagreed with all of Christofias’ handlings and wonders how long they will continue to participate in the government. They’ve disagreed with the 21 March agreement for not mentioning the 8 July agreement. They disagreed with the opening of Ledra Street because it sent wrong messages abroad and they disagreed with the composition of the working groups and committees. What worries the leaders of the two rejectionist parties is that there are now serious prospects for a solution and reunification of the island. Will they withdraw from the government or will they remain in order to tackle the problem from within? The decision should be made by the leader of the rejectionists Tassos Papadopoulos who managed during his term to make the danger of a solution of the Cyprus problem and the reunification of the island recede into the distance.

Columnist Hasan Hasturer writing in Kibris says that whileTalat was unable to gain the sympathy of the Greek Cypriot community as a man of peace thanks to G/C propaganda which portrayed him as a second Denktash when in fact it was Mr Papadopoulos who with his intransigence was the second Denktash, in contrast Christofias has made a very good start. He has established contacts with T/C NGOs and never hesitated to give a positive response to their requests for meetings. Mr Christofias knows what he is doing. He will try to reach the Turkish Cypriot community through establishing warm relations with T/C NGOs. He has already started doing so.