Presidential Commissioner Fotis Fotiou held a meeting on Wednesday with the UNFICYP’s (UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus) head for humanitarian issues, following the unilateral decision of the illegal Turkish Cypriot regime to impose “taxes” and “fees” on the  humanitarian help given to the enclaved people in the Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus.

In statements to CNA, Fotiou said that he raised the problems before the UNFICYP official and called for UNFICYP’s contribution to resolve the humanitarian issues. He also reiterated the government’s firm position that it would not pay “taxes”.

Fotiou reassured that on political and diplomatic level, efforts are being undertaken to change the situation, which affects mainly enclaved older people and babies.

The government’s goal is that the UN, the five permanent member states of the UNSC and the European Union, actively intervene, so that this inhuman situation is changed.

Whatever measures are taken now, he said, they are taken temporarily, only to help the enclaved persons in these difficult times.

‘Our aim is that this inhuman, unacceptable and provocative measure is lifted,” he continued.

The Republic of Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third.

At the end of the second phase of the Turkish invasion late in August 1974, about 20,000 Greek and Maronite Cypriots inhabiting in villages and townships primarily in the Karpass Peninsula of northeast Cyprus and in villages west of the city of Kyrenia remained behind the ceasefire line. Today, only a total of 437 (April 2013) persons remain behind the “green line,” of whom 328 are Greek Cypriot and 109 Maronite Cypriots. These persons are known as the “enclaved”.

Despite the Third Vienna Agreement, Turkey and its Turkish Cypriot surrogates have violated all its terms. Since 1974, the enclaved have endured conditions of hardship and oppression because of their ethnicity, language and religion.