PERTEV: “TIME IS NOT APPROPRIATE TO SET A DATE FOR A MEETING BETWEEN THE TWO LEADERS”

Presidential Undersecretary Rasit Pertev stated that as the Greek Cypriot side had done its utmost to prevent the match to be played between Luton Town (English League One team) and Cetinkaya football team (last year’s champion of TRNC first division), it was not the right time to set a date for the two leaders to meet.

During the meeting with Chief of Diplomatic Office of the Greek Cypriot administration Tassos Tzonis, Rasit Pertev expressed the strong reaction of the Turkish Cypriot side resulting from the Greek Cypriot side’s intolerance even to a friendly football match and the pressure campaign it carried out for the cancellation of the match.

Speaking after the meeting, Pertev stressed that the cultural and sports embargoes imposed on the Turkish Cypriot people were inhumane and outdated and said: “We are aware that it is the Greek Cypriot side, which is responsible for these embargoes. We conveyed to our counterparts, our regrets against this unjust treatment and condemned it”.

President Mehmet Ali Talat in his press conference on Tuesday (10 July), had announced that he deemed positive the call made by Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos through UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Cyprus Michael Moller. Therefore, in yesterday’s (12 July) meeting between Pertev and Tzonis, it was expected that a date was going to be set for a meeting between the two leaders.

 

REMAINS OF 13 ALAMINYO MARTYRS BURRIED WITH A MILITARY FUNERAL

Remains of 13 martyrs, who were massacred by Greek Cypriots in the village of Alaminyo during the 1974 Peace Operation, laid to rest yesterday with a military ceremony in Ortakoy Martyrdom in Lefkosa Cemetery.

13 Turkish Cypriot martyrs who were taken from the Anthropology Laboratory by Lefkosa Municipality’s funeral cars are the first missing persons whose identities have been identified.

Speaking during the funeral, who is the son of one of the martyrs, Kudret Ozersay said that the relatives of the missing persons are still today feeling the pain of the bitter experiences of the past although 33 years had passed. Ozersay reminded that for 33 years these martyrs were deprived of their basic human right to be laid humanly.

“We raised a fresh generation of conscious, highly alert and intelligent youthful men and women in stead of those embracing blind enmity with the aim of preventing the repetition of the bitter experiences of the past, which went into the Turkish Cypriot history as shameful instances of `inhumane deeds` he said.

President Mehmet Ali Talat, Speaker of the Parliament Fatma Ekenoglu, Prime Minister Ferdi Sabit Soyer, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Turgay Avcý, Turkish Ambassador to Lefkosa Turkekul Kurttekin, First President of the TRNC Rauf Denktas, Commander of the Turkish Peace Forces in Cyprus Lieutenant General Hayri Kivrikoglu, the Commander of the Cyprus Turkish Security Forces Major General Mehmet Ersoz, ministers, MPs, representatives from political parties, high ranking military officials, family members and a large crowd of people attended the ceremony.