President of the Association of Martyrs Families and Veterans Ertan Ersan stated that the Greek Cypriot administration had not carried out an effective investigation for the missing Turkish Cypriots since 1963, had not searched the reasons for their death, not spent effort to identify the responsible of this and had not given any information to the relatives of the missing.

Ersan sent a letter on this issue to the ECHR and its permanent representations in Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

In his letter, Ersan noted that although the ECHR had joined the personal applications made by the Greek Cypriot missing relatives in 1998 and considered them to be acceptable, it rejected 4 separate personal applications made by the Turkish Cypriot missing relatives in 2000 and 2001 with the excuse that they exceeded the time-limit.

Stressing that the Greek Cypriot administration’s negligence since 1963/1974 of the fact that there were missing Turkish Cypriots was an unalterable reality, Ersan expressed disappointment as a result of the unfair treatment by the ECHR towards the Turkish Cypriots.

Ersan pointed out that relatives of 84 missing Turkish Cypriots applied to the Greek Cypriot government demanding an effective investigation and the sharing of information with them, however they had not received any response, thus sued the Greek Cypriot Presidency and government for negligence in the Administrative Court.

Continuing, Ersan noted that: