PRESIDENT TALAT: "TURKISH PORTS WILL OPEN WHEN OUR PORTS ARE OPENED"

Pointing out that the Greek Cypriot side would not veto Turkey's EU accession negotiations because the conditions under which Turkey would start EU negotiations had been identified on 17 December and that the decision had already been made and signatures signed in this direction, President Mehmet Ali Talat said Greek Cypriot efforts were nothing more than just making noise.

Referring to recent allegations that Turkey would open her ports to the Greek Cypriot administration, the President said Turkish ports would be open when the TRNC's ports were opened.

Reminding that Turkey had already said (to the Greek Cypriot side), "let's reciprocally lift the isolations", President Talat said:

"In fact, if the declaration that was previously made by the Greek Cypriot side to the effect that our ports and airports are closed was retracted, this would, to a large extent, be a step to ending the isolation. Then Turkey would be able to better evaluate the situation and if opening her ports was a necessity of the supplementary protocol signed with the EU to extend the Ankara Agreement, then Turkey will do whatever is necessary.

However, it is a political decision. The Greek Cypriot administration's decision is a political decision; the decision to declare our ports and airports closed is political; because in reality they are still functioning. Since it's a political decision, the decision taken by Turkey vis-à-vis this decision is also a political one. Political decisions can be lifted together".

 

STUDIES ON MISSING PERSONS…

Within the framework of ongoing studies on the missing persons issue, the DNA Laboratory that is planned to be set up in the following months at the Nicosia State Hospital in the TRNC will operate under the Ministry of Health. The laboratory will only carry out studies on the missing persons and after obtaining blood samples from the relatives of the missing it will carry out the preliminary investigation. The identification process will be carried out by the Genetic Hospital, which operates in line with world standards, in the Buffer Zone.

Turkish Cypriot Genetic and DNA expert Dr. Erol Baysal, who was invited to the TRNC by President Talat to carry out studies on the laboratory's infrastructure, said the in the initial stages the laboratory at the Nicosia State Hospital would obtain blood samples for detailed examination from the relatives of the missing, and under the supervision of the Autonomous Missing Persons Committee the identification process would then be carried out at the Genetic Hospital in the Buffer Zone. He said both Turkish and Greek Cypriot experts would be working together under equal conditions as administrators and experts at the Genetic Hospital.

Following urgent individual diggings that were carried out in the Kyrenia region between June to July, it is expected that under the supervision of the INFORCE forensic group, mass graves will be exhumed in both the TRNC and the Greek Cypriot administration in October and November.