President Denktas yesterday (21 September) received a delegation of newly appointed career diplomats from the Turkish Foreign Ministry and stressing that the Cyprus issue was vital for Turkey, said that is why Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots defended it. Reminding the remark made by former Turkish President Fahri Koruturk that ‘if Turkey lost Cyprus, it would no longer be a country open to the seas’, President Denktas drew attention to the fact that if Cyprus was lost Turkey would become an encircled country.

Referring to the Annan Plan, President Denktas said with the Greek Cypriot ‘no’ vote in the referendum, this plan was no longer valid and it was pointless to defend it.

President Denktas said: "Defending the Annan Plan means the removal of Turkish troops from the island, the return of Greek Cypriot refugees to their former homes, complicating territorial issues and by portraying the struggle, which is in a critical stage and has not yet been settled, as if it has been settled, sending us into the arms of the Greek Cypriots. Naturally, we cannot and will not accept this".

Pointing out that Turkey was justified in the Cyprus issue and although this reality was well known by the international community he couldn’t understand why they didn’t accept this, President Denktas said the Cyprus issue, which for 40-years had enabled Turkey to be open to the seas and as Makarios said if Cyprus united with Greece it would be the 13^th island and complete the chain of Greek islands, was being looked at from a geo-political strategic point of view. He said Turkey would not give up the Mediterranean and make any sacrifices in the Cyprus issue, in which it was justified.

After a 4-year break in its studies to settle the missing persons issue the Autonomous Missing Persons Committee again met today (22 September) with the participation of Turkish and Greek Cypriot and UN representatives.

In order to locate missing Turkish and Greek Cypriot persons the opening of graves on the two sides is on the agenda and in last week’s meeting while agreement was reached on the international body that would carry out the exhumation of the graves, in today’s meeting the work timetable was identified.

The special unit that will be set up to deal with this issue in the TRNC will consist of ten people and work independently from the Committee. In its meeting last week, the Autonomous Missing Persons Committee, reminding that in the last meeting the international body to exhume the graves was agreed upon, said this was extremely important and the Committee was working in harmony and entering a very intensive work schedule.

Up until now, the Greek Cypriot side has informed the Turkish Cypriot side of the location of 22 graves, of which four are in the North and where 201 Turkish Cypriot people are buried. On the other hand, the Turkish Cypriot side has informed the Greek Cypriot side the location of 4 graves on a map. In the new process it is expected that these graves will be opened.