Turkey told to pay Loizidou
Prime Minister Costas Simitis and visiting Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday insisted that Turkey should swiftly obey a 1998 European Court of Human Rights decision to compensate a Cypriot woman for property she lost during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Their comments, at a press conference in Athens – where Papadopoulos arrived on Tuesday for a state visit – came amid conflicting reports on whether Turkey had complied with yesterday’s deadline imposed by the Council of Europe to pay Titina Loizidou $900,000 (763,000 euros). Yesterday evening, shortly before CoE officials decided to postpone a decision on the Loizidou case to today, Turkey’s representative said no payment had been made. «Turkey must comply immediately,» Simitis said. «This is also a question of prestige for [the ECHR].» Papadopoulos said the CoE was meant to monitor implementation of ECHR decisions, «not to get involved in negotiations and proposals of the sort we have witnessed in recent days.»
