Greek Cypriots have received a total of £25.4 million (€29.8m) worth of compensation from the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) in the north so far in 2024, according to Turkish Cypriot newspaper Halkin Sesi.
Decisions have been made regarding a total of 45 claims, the largest of which was worth £11m (€12.9m). In addition, four other cases concerned payments of more than £1m (€1.2m).
In total, according to the latest figures from the IPC, a total of 7,598 applications have been lodged with the commission, of which 1,781 have been concluded.
The IPC has awarded more than £446.2m (€523.7m) in compensation since its creation in 2005. It examines claims for compensation, as well as for restitution – the handing back of Greek Cypriot-owned property in the north – and exchange of land.
The current figures have been released a month after the north’s ‘government’ secured £68m (€79m) to forward onto Greek Cypriots as compensation.
In January, former IPC chairman Ayfer Said Erkmen said the cost of compensating every single Greek Cypriot for every single piece of land lost in 1974 may top £22.4 billion (€26.3bn).
He explained that the compensation paid so far through the IPC accounts to around £16,000 per donum (1,000 square metres) of land, and that there are 1.4 million donums (1,400 square kilometres) of Greek Cypriot-owned land in the north.
“If you do this calculation, we get a number. It makes £22.4bn!” he said.
With this in mind, he said the “most important problem” facing the IPC is financial resources, and that Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek had suggested that the current user of any given property should pay 20 per cent of any compensation handed out and that the Republic of Turkey would pay the rest.
However, he said this idea was rejected by the properties’ current users, and that as a result, the Turkish government now does not pay into the IPC and nearly 4,000 applications are pending.
Among those applications are for the north’s ‘parliament’ building, which was previously the Dianellos cigarette factory. Dianellos’ descendants demanded €35m in compensation for the building, and no response has yet been given.
On the matter of Varosha, he said applications have been made for 404 of the area’s 824 total properties, while €198m has also been sought for loss of use. These applications have been based on revenues in Ayia Napa, though Erkmen said “I do not find these [valuations] very realistic.”
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