The Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot community exchanged on Tuesday art works and audiovisual recordings in the United Nations Protected Area.
 
A statement issued by the United Nations Spokesperson in Cyprus on behalf of the Technical Committee on Culture says that “the Technical Committee on Culture is pleased to announce an exchange of art works and audiovisual recordings that took place today in the United Nations Protected Area”.
 
The statements adds that “the exchange followed an agreement made by the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr. Mustafa Akıncı, and the Greek Cypriot leader, Mr. Nicos Anastasiades on 26th February 2019 for the Turkish Cypriot side to return paintings by Greek Cypriot artists and the Greek Cypriot side to hand over visual and audio recordings of Turkish Cypriot artists from their respective archives”.
 
Paintings and recordings will be prepared for an exhibition which will be open to public in due course.
AKEL expresses its satisfaction with the positive outcome of the efforts undertaken by the Bi-communal Committee on Culture, which has resulted in the receipt of 219 works of art from the occupied territories and belonging to Greek Cypriot cultural artists, as well as with the simultaneous handing over of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation’s archive material concerning the Turkish Cypriot community.

This positive conclusion reaffirms once again the enormous potential of Culture to act as a unifying force among our country’s cultural artists, both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, by highlighting in the best possible way the values of solidarity and the respect for the value, but also cultural creation of works of art.

AKEL congratulates the Bi-communal Committee on Culture in particular for the great efforts it has made to reach this very positive outcome. We expect that similar initiatives across all the spectrum of culture will also be taken in the future as well.