Cyprus Missing persons’ issue not impossible to solve, but cooperation with Turkish side is ‘not satisfactory’ LIBE Chair says
Solving the issue of missing persons in Cyprus is “not impossible” but cooperation with the Turkish side is “never satisfactory” Juan Fernando López Aguilar, the Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, (LIBE) said on Wednesday.
Addressing a group of journalists from Cyprus, the Spanish S&D MEP, who is also the standing rapporteur for the issue of missing persons in Cyprus, López Aguilar said that so much energy, EU money and EU skill has been put into solving this humanitarian problem, and yet there are so many people pending to be found.
There has been some progress, however there are families still waiting for their beloved ones, he added.
Asked about efforts to persuade Turkey to open its military archives, containing information on the whereabouts of missing persons in Cyprus, the MEP said he was aware about “the issue with Turkey, which is not an easy issue.”
“Although we heard from the Turkish side that they are willing to cooperate, that cooperation is never satisfactory,” he added.
Speaking about Turkey as a regional actor, López Aguilar said that “the issue is huge and hugely problematic.” He said that the only issue during his term in the European Parliament, where he saw unanimity across all political forces is “criticism against Turkey.”
It’s the only issue, where all political forces, from the extreme right to the extreme left, criticise Turkey’s behaviour and “regret and deplore Turkey’s regression on the dark side of the force” he added.
“We all demand the Commission to do better with Turkey” he noted.
As for exhumations, López Aguilar said that the number of people still to be found is not impossible to reach and referred to his country’s experience, where half a million people went missing during the Spanish civil war in the 1930’s.
He brought up the case of Spain’s celebrated poet Federico García Lorca, who was shot in 1936 in Granada province, adding that “nobody knows where he is lying.”
López Aguilar who visited Cyprus twice in the past with LIBE, said that he would return to the island to be briefed properly on efforts on missing persons, once the pandemic allowed for another follow up mission.
The MEP was also asked about the recent armament deal between Spain and Turkey, as one example of putting individual member states’ interests above EU concerns about principles and values. The short answer, he replied, is to “go European and act together” in terms of EU foreign policy matters. “I regret this cacophony of the European external dimension” he added.
He said that the EU is surrounded by “unruly neighbours” such as Russia, Turkey, or countries in the northern African region, adding that each one of them “may take advantage of our division, trying to make us irrelevant, non-significant”. This is something we should overcome, he said.
Neither the member states or the EU should ignore Turkey or Russia, he noted, adding that “we should engage in talks, we should cooperate” with them “but that doesn’t mean that we may indulge in weakening ourselves by individual arrangements” which will only increase the leverage of neighbours who want to take advantage of divisions in the EU.
As to individual deals, including those concerning the arms industry, there is little the European Parliament can do to prevent them, López Aguilar concluded.
