Barış Burcu, spokesman for Turkish Cypriot president Mustafa Akıncı
Turkish Cypriots have expressed unease over a UN representative’s recent statement that a settlement would see a handover of land to the Greek side.
Espen Barth Eide, the United Nations secretary-general’s envoy to the island, said earlier this month that the leaders of both communities on the island had agreed to respect the individual’s right to property prior to the island’s division in 1974.
Property is one of the most contentious issues in the peace talks between the two sides. Large swathes of Greek Cypriot-owned land was seized by the Turkish military when it invaded the island’s north in response to a coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.
Large numbers of Turkish Cypriots had to abandon their own property in the south of the island and flee to the Turkish-held north at the same time.
Both sides broadly agree that a Cyprus settlement will involve a handover of Turkish-held land to the Greek side, but the rights over property that have in some cases been inhabited for more than 30 years will be a hugely contentious issue.
One Turkish Cypriot opposition MP claimed it would result in a civil war.
“Dispossessed owners and current users shall have various choices regarding their claims to affected properties. These different choices shall include compensation, exchange and reinstatement,” Mr Eide said, as he announced a court-like commission that would be established after the reunification.
The daily newspaper Hürriyet quoted Turkish Cypriot president Mustafa Akıncı’s spokesman Barış Burcu as saying they were not taking steps that would damage the Turkish side.
“They are telling us that we are selling the nation but we are not,” he said
Some 80 percent of the property in northern Cyprus belonged to the Greeks in the south before the Turkish military’s intervention in 1974 following a pro-Greek coup on the island, Hürriyet reported.