Turkish Cypriots employed at the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) called off a planned strike on Monday, after receiving their back pay at the last minute.

The 50 employees belong to the Ktams trade union, representing civil servants in the north.

They had threatened to stop working, complaining they had not been paid for 46 days.

On Monday, they received their back pay.

A group of employees staged a protest outside the ‘finance ministry’ building.

Head of Ktams, Guven Bengihan accused the north’s ‘finance minister’ Ozdemir Berova of having “impeded” the approval of the wages.

Bengihan described this as a “political stance”, noting that the CMP’s 50 Turkish Cypriot employees have been offering their services on a contract basis for 20 years, without the attendant benefits.

He also criticised the Turkish Cypriot member of the CMP, Hakki Muftuzade, of indifference.

The CMP is a bi-communal body established in 1981 by the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities with the participation of the United Nations.

Following the establishment of an agreed list of missing persons, the CMP’s objective is to recover, identify, and return to their families the remains of 2002 persons (492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,510 Greek Cypriots) who went missing during the periods of 1963 to 1964 and 1974, as well as during the intervening period.