Turkey finances Cyprus on missing Cypriots projects

Turkey has donated 50,000 U.S. dollars to Cyprus to help in the search and identification of Cypriots missing since intercommunal fighting erupted in the 1960s and during the 1974 Turkish military intervention, officials said Monday.

"This donation is a part of the ongoing international support that enables the CMP to continue its project on the exhumation, identification and return of remains of the missing persons in 2010-2011," the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) said in a statement.

"Thanks to this support, the CMP is now able to move along in its efforts to locate as many remains as possible in order to bring a closure to the tragedy that has affected so many families on the island for so many years," the statement said.

Set up in the early 1980s, the CMP includes one representative from each community in the divided eastern Mediterranean island and an official appointed by the United Nations. Its task is to locate and identify remains of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots who disappeared in the early 1960s when intercommunal fighting broke out and during the 1974 Turkish military intervention.

Some 2,000 people were reported missing during the two periods. To date, the remains of more than 750 individuals have been exhumed and the remains of more than 260 have been returned to their families.

Source: Xinhua