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Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 99-11-27
CONTENS
[01] Stone-throwing Turks blamed for breaking car window
[02] British co-operation on Menson case not recognition, Turkish Cypriot
official admits
[03] Government to seek tenders for Paphos airport
[04] Petrol prices could rise to offset cost of crude
[05] Staff suspected of embezzling cash to play the stock market
[06] Bulent Ecevit, of Rauf Denktash Street, nabbed in Oroklini for
driving without a licence – sensation
[07] Denktash dashes Varosha hopes
[01] Stone-throwing Turks blamed for breaking car window
By George Psyllides
TURKISH soldiers were yesterday blamed for shattering the window of a
car parked at Minoos Street on the Green Line, in the old city of
Nicosia.
Police yesterday said they were investigating an incident in which a
car window was smashed by stones.
The car was parked outside a house at Minoos Street, in the
Chrysaliniotissa area of Nicosia, which faces the buffer zone.
Police believe the stones were thrown by Turkish soldiers, who man a
sentry post west of the street.
Other sources suggested the smashed window was the work of vandals in
the government-controlled areas.
But National Guardsmen on duty at the end of Minoos Street told the
Cyprus Mail that stone throwing from the north was a regular
phenomenon.
The Turks, one soldier said, used slings to launch stones across the
buffer zone all the time.
Residents of the street also confirmed that the Turks threw stones
almost daily.
"Sometimes the stones come from the guard post to the west of the
street, and sometimes from the front," one worried resident said.
Another resident said the car owner's house had also been targeted with
stones.
Unficyp has been informed about the incident.
Unficyp spokeswoman Sarah Russell told the Cyprus Mail yesterday: "
the UN has received the report and is looking into it."
[02] British co-operation on Menson case not recognition, Turkish
Cypriot official admits
By Martin Hellicar
SOMEWHAT unexpectedly, the occupation regime yesterday passed up an
apparent opportunity to claim Britain was recognising the so-called
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
On Thursday, a 'court' in occupied Nicosia convicted and sentenced a
Turkish Cypriot to 14 years behind bars for the 1997 London murder of
British rapper Michael Menson. Several British witnesses and British
police officers investigating the Menson's January 1997 murder were in
the occupied areas to testify in the trial.
Yesterday, the director general of the occupation regime's 'Ministry of
Foreign affairs and Defence', Resat Caglar, called foreign journalists
to a press conference in occupied Nicosia to comment on the verdict.
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash has for years been trying to use
any opportunity to claim international recognition for his breakaway
'TRNC'. Caglar was expected to toe the line and tell journalists that
Britain's acceptance of the 'court' ruling on a murder on her soil was
tantamount to British recognition of the 'TRNC'.
Foreign news agencies had even set up interviews with Government
Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou, ready to get his reaction to the north's
recognition claims.
But, in the event, Caglar made no such claims.
"This is a recognition by Britain that our institutions work properly,
that our courts and judicial systems are up to standards of those of
Britain," Caglar said. "It demonstrates their faith in both our
institutions and systems," he added.
But then he said: "There is no question of our interpreting this as
recognition of the state of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
because this would require diplomatic moves and an exchange of
ambassadors etc."
Caglar admitted he would "love to think" this was a form of recognition
by Britain, but it was not.
He did, however, add that it did the 'TRNC' recognition campaign "no
harm."
The British High Commission in Nicosia has refused to comment on the
possible political significance of the 'trial' in the north.
The man convicted on Thursday, Ozgay Yorgun, fled to the north soon
after the killing. He was tried in the north because the breakaway
state does not extradite to other countries.
Caglar said yesterday that the go-ahead for the case to be tried in the
north was given via the British High Commission, by the British Home
and Foreign Offices.
He added that Britain and the 'TRNC' had cooperated on police matters
for over 10 years.
Caglar also said separate Turkish Cypriot courts were recognised under
the 1960 constitution, so there was no reason for the government not to
recognise them now.
Attorney-general Alecos Markides says the European Court has ruled that
'courts' in the north can only be recognised as an extension of the
mainland Turkish judicial system.
Yorgun is one of three men accused of dousing Menson with gasoline and
setting him on fire on January 28 1997. The two other suspects - Greek
Cypriot Charalambos Constantinou and Mauritian Mario Pereira - are
being tried for murder in Britain.
Menson died of burns 16 days after what his family insist was a racist
attack.
[03] Government to seek tenders for Paphos airport
By Phanis Droushiotis
THE GOVERNMENT will be seeking private tenders for Paphos Airport,
according to Transport Minister Averof Neophytou.
Speaking in Paphos on Thursday night, Neophytou admitted the state no
longer had either the ability or the resources to run the airport,
adding it was common in Europe and America for private interests to run
such concerns.
The minister was responding to opposition claims that the government's
Improvement Plan for the airport was falling behind schedule and that
the millennium would find Paphos with a "third world" airport.
Asked why the government was still investing hundreds of thousands of
pounds in improvement schemes for the airport if it would end in
private hands, Neophytou replied, "This was scheduled before my
appointment as a minister."
The government announced earlier this year that it would make available
£600,000 for further airport and runway improvements, as well as for a
new air traffic control tower.
Neophytou said told a Lions' club audience that his recent visit to the
UK and US had convinced him that the private sector was more
competitive than any local government when it came to running
establishments such as airports, railways or telecommunications.
Neophytou also denied claims by Paphos deputies Nicos Pittokopitis and
Georgios Hadjigeorgiou, both of whom sit on the House Transport
Committee, that his department was responsible for delays in another
major project, the Limassol-Paphos highway.
"The highway was planned 10 years ago and will be delivered to the
public exactly within the deadline of September 2000," he insisted.
"All obstacles will be overcome," he said, referring to complaints from
residents of Timi and Kouklia villages that they would not have access
to the highway.
Neophytou visited the areas yesterday, meeting local representatives.
He said after his meetings that he was open to any suggestions, but
insisted the government would keep to its schedule.
"If people want the highway or any other major project to proceed, they
must be prepared to accept new arrangements for reaching their own
homes," Neophytou said.
[04] Petrol prices could rise to offset cost of crude
By Anthony O. Miller
WITH crude oil prices more than doubling this year, a rise in the
petrol pump price is one option the government is weighing to keep
afloat the island's four oil companies, Commerce and Industry Minister
Nicos Rolandis said yesterday.
"Because crude oil prices are now in the region of $25 or $26 per
barrel," Rolandis said, "the (island's four) oil companies are
registering a loss" of some $4 million for 1999.
"It's an urgent issue, and we realise that the oil companies are
suffering because of this," Rolandis said. But he urged "some patience
of a few days," since the oil companies will learn of the government's
remedy "by December 10."
The Republic's contract with Exxon-Esso, Mobil, BP and Petrolina
"guaranteed them a 12 per cent (return) on their equity. If they had
the 12 per cent, they would have made £2.8 million" in profits by
year's end, Rolandis said.
But with crude's cost soaring, the island's oil importers will not only
fail to make the contract's £2.8 million in profits for 1999, but
"instead, they're going to lose £1.2 million" more in the
import-and-refining process. "So the red-ink differential is £4
million" for the four companies this year, Rolandis said.
"The situation is difficult," Rolandis said. He and Finance Minister
Takis Klerides yesterday were "exploring ways of rectifying the
situation... (but) have not reached a final conclusion" on what to do,
he said.
However, "remedial action will have to be taken," Rolandis said. "And
such action is either an increase of the (pump) prices again, or a
temporary deletion of the excise duty as far as the (oil) companies are
concerned."
"In other words," Rolandis said, "we shall be collecting the full
(petrol pump) price, including excise duty, (but) we shall not charge
them with the duty, which means that they shall make up part of their
losses."
Or there may be some "combination of the two (options)," he said: a
smaller (price) increase, and the partial, temporary deletion of the
excise duty."
"Of course, this means the public coffers will lose the money" in
uncollected excise duties," Rolandis said, "so, actually, indirectly,
the consumer pays for it -- not directly from his pocket, but...
indirectly from the public money."
Rolandis said no solution to the problem would emerge until he returned
on December 7 from a week of WTO (World Trade Organisation) meetings in
Seattle in the United States, and two days beyond that in London.
[05] Staff suspected of embezzling cash to play the stock market
POLICE ARE investigating allegations that two employees embezzled £3
million from the Polemidhia Cooperative Bank.
The Chairman of the bank, Costas Thoma, who is also Kato Polemidhia
Mayor, reported the case to police on Thursday.
Thoma told police the two employees had confessed to stealing the money
in a letter they had sent to the bank committee.
The letter did not say why they were taking the money, Thoma said.
Police said yesterday that initial investigations suggested the
suspects had been using the money to invest in the stock market and in
real estate.
The duo had allegedly been embezzling money from the bank for the past
three years.
The two suspects are understood to have returned over £2 million in
cash and personal mortgage to the bank.
Trade Minister Nicos Rolandis, who has been following the case closely,
yesterday blamed the incident on the "hunt for easy money through the
stock market."
The auditing service of the director of cooperative development is
investigating to find the exact method the two had used to siphon the
money, and the conditions under which they had been operating.
The bank yesterday assured its customers that their accounts had not
suffered from the embezzlement.
[06] Bulent Ecevit, of Rauf Denktash Street, nabbed in Oroklini for
driving without a licence sensation
BULENT Ecevit was brought up before Larnaca District Court yesterday
after going for a drive in the government-controlled areas and being
arrested.
Ecevit was nabbed in Archbishop Makarios Avenue, Oroklini, on Thursday
afternoon. He told the court he had gone for a drive after visiting
family friends in the mixed buffer-zone village of Pyla.
The court, and representatives of Unficyp, listened intently as Ecevit
said he was not aware that he was not allowed to enter the south. The
defendant, who gave his address as Rauf Denktash Street, in the
Famagusta area village of Strongylo, was
fined £230 after he pleaded guilty to driving an unregistered vehicle,
without a recognised driving licence or insurance cover. He was ordered
to pay the fine on the spot before being released.
For those who think that Bulent Ecevit did not get his just desserts,
it should be pointed out that he is a 25-year-old Turkish Cypriot
hairdresser who lives in the occupied area.
The court heard that he had been named after the Turkish Prime Minister
-- who had ordered the 1974 invasion during a previous spell as
premier. Ecevit junior was born in Strongylo just a few months after
the invasion, on October 10, 1974.
Ecevit junior, speaking through an interpreter, said he had visited
Pyla with his 17-year-old fiancée, to introduce her to friends and
relatives. He then decided to go for a drive and ended up in Oroklini.
He apologised to the court for straying over, explaining that he did
not know his way about that well and had not realised he was committing
an offence.
[07] Denktash dashes Varosha hopes
Martin Hellicar
TURKISH Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash yesterday blew away any
suggestions that the Turkish side might hand over Varosha to government
control.
On Thursday night, visiting Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou
fuelled rumours that a hand-over might be in the offing by suggesting
such a move might be a good gesture for the Turkish side to make ahead
of the Helsinki EU summit. The Turks are hoping Greece will lift its
veto on Turkey becoming an EU candidate at the 15-nation bloc's
December summit.
But according to reports from the north yesterday, Denktash has
dismissed the possibility of a hand-over of the ghost town.
Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou yesterday said the return of
Varosha would be a "serious development". He said such a development
would be "taken into account" at Helsinki. But he added that the issue
had not been tabled by the Turkish side.
Archbishop Chrysostomos said the return of part of the occupied areas
was unacceptable. "We must fight for all of Cyprus," he said after a
morning meeting with Papandreou.
This is not the first time there has been talk of the Turkish side
handing over Varosha, a ghost town since 1974, as part of a settlement
deal. Athens has made it clear she wants to see concessions from Ankara
on Cyprus and Greco-Turkish relations before lifting its veto on EU
candidacy. Greece has not specified what these concessions should be.
Papapetrou said Cyprus would be happy to see Turkey join the EU if
Ankara gave ground on Cyprus first. "The aim is for the Greek
representation not to come away from Helsinki empty-
handed, because if this happens Turkey will come away without a
candidacy," the spokesman warned. "We are not opposed to Turkey's EU
candidacy," he added.
Denktash was yesterday also reported as saying that he would only talk
to UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan during the proximity talks in New
York next week.
Reports yesterday suggested the talks -- set to start on Friday,
December 3 -- were to take place solely in New York, rather than
opening in New York and then moving to Long Island for a second round.
Papapetrou said President Clerides and his back-up team were to leave
for the US on Tuesday, travelling via Zurich. He said Clerides would be
in the States by December 1.
Papandreou concluded his Cyprus visit yesterday with a round of
meetings which included calls on Clerides, Archbishop Chrysostomos and
party leaders.
© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1999
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