Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 17

Memorandum from the Cypriot Forum for Labour

  With reference to the Committee's inquiry into the United Kingdom's relations with Turkey with reference to Turkey's role in European Defence structures and its prospects for accession to the European Union, [5 February 2002], we should be pleased if you would kindly note the following:

    (a)  Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus in 1974, it ethnically cleansed the whole of the Greek-Cypriot population from the areas it invaded and continues with the military occupation of 37 per cent of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus. More than 120 UN General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions call for the withdrawal of the Turkish army and to allow the return of the 200,000 refugees to their homes;

    (b)  Turkey continues to wage war against its own citizens, the Kurds and refuses to recognise neither their minority rights, nor their rights as a community to uphold their own language and culture; and

    (c)  Turkey's record on human rights, which includes the murder of journalists and isolation of political dissidents, is a far cry from European norms and there is no tangible evidence as yet of any specific intention of changing its current policy and practices.

  It therefore goes without saying that unless Turkey takes meaningful steps to change its policy on the above, HM Government should discourage any closer relations with that country.

Cypriot Forum for Labour

February 2002



 
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