Cyprus News Agency: News in English, 08-05-30

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From: The Cyprus News Agency at <http://www.cyna.org.cy>

CONTENTS

[01] MISSING - RELATIVES

[02] ARGONAFTIS - JUNE

[01] MISSING - RELATIVES

The President of the Committee Nicos Theodosiou described the first meeting with the President of the Republic as very substantial.

President Christofias is someone who faces the problem at home. We consider him as a missing persons relative and we hope that with his sensitivities, the problems which do not depend on the Turkish intransigence will be solved, Theodosiou said, indicating that he was referring to the problems that could be tackled by the government.

We have to maintain the process of exhumations and identifications but also speed it up because it is a very slow process, he said.

He added that there need to be substantial investigations, noting that there was a danger of cases remaining unsolved.

Theodosiou said it was the duty of his Committee to work for the solution of each and every case in a conclusive manner.

He also reiterated the demand of the Committee and the Council of Europe for access to the files of the Turkish army and the Turkish prisons.

According to Theodosiou, 89 Greek Cypriots have been identified from exhumations in the Turkish occupied north and 47 Greek Cypriots have been identified from exhumations which took place in the government controlled areas of the Republic. The number of missing persons is 1,503.

[02] ARGONAFTIS - JUNE

Presenting the plan prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in cooperation with other government departments and especially the National Guard, the Police and the Civil Defence Department, code-named ESTIA, the Ministry`s Division of Consular Affairs/Schengen Director Phaedon Anastasiou, who is the coordinator of the plan, said that ESTIA is the result of a major collective effort and aims at the coordination of efforts by state departments to address situations, such as the massive arrival in Cyprus of foreign citizens due to a severe political crisis or an armed conflict in the area and the allocation of human aid to them.``

Anastasiou referred to the experiences Cyprus had when it received refugees from Lebanon in July 2006 on the basis of which ESTIA has been prepared. He noted that several tabletop exercises have been conducted with the participation of competent government departments to assess the effectiveness of the plan.

He said that part of the plan, in its primary stages, was implemented during the recent political unrest in Lebanon.

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