Finding the 920 people who remain unidentified after going missing during Cyprus’ 1963-1964 intercommunal conflicts and the 1974 Turkish invasion is “a top priority”, President Nikos Christodoulides said on Thursday, as he marked “missing persons day”, which has been observed by the Greek Cypriot community on October 29 since 2010.

“We stand with respect alongside their families, who for decades have endured the agony of uncertainty and rightfully await answers regarding their loved ones. For the Republic of Cyprus, the issue of the missing is, first and foremost, a humanitarian one,” he said.

He added that “our efforts will continue until the fate of every single missing person has been determined.”

“In this context, we provide substantive support to the work of the Committee of Missing Persons, offering all necessary institutional, technical and financial assistance. At the same time, we are intensifying our efforts to collect, evaluate and utilise testimonies and archival records,” he said.

This, he said, is being done so as to “accelerate the processes of exhumation and identification, and to ensure that families are kept properly and meaningfully informed”.

“At the international level, we treat the issue of missing persons as a top priority. It is a subject of discussion in every engagement with the Turkish Cypriot leadership, Turkey, the United Nations, the European Union and the international community,” he said.

Christodoulides demands ‘full and unconditional access’ to Turkish military archives

On this front, he said that “our position is clear and specific”, and that he is demanding “full and unconditional access to the archives of the Turkish military and any other relevant authority”.

This, he said, must entail “the provision of all information regarding burial sites, the relocation of remains, and military operations”, while he said that “investigations and exhumations within military zones and other areas where access is currently restricted” must be “facilitated”.

“At the same time, supporting the families of the missing persons remains an enduring obligation of ours. As a state, we will continue to address the social, economic and other challenges they face with sensitivity and consistency, through targeted policies and ongoing dialogue with their representative organisations,” he said.

He then said he wished to “call upon Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot side to respond substantively regarding the provision of information held by the Turkish military, as well as access to potential burial sites”.

“Today, we renew our pledge: we will not resign ourselves to oblivion, nor will we accept inaction. The truth regarding every missing person is an essential prerequisite for justice, reconciliation and a sustainable peace in our land,” he said.

He added that “until substantiated answers are provided for all, our efforts will continue unabated”, and that “we owe this to the children, as well as to the surviving parents of the missing”.

“Above all, however, we owe it to those parents, the mothers and fathers, who passed away while still bearing the deep, aching sorrow of their children’s absence,” he said.

2,002 people officially declared missing

Earlier in the day, the organisation of relatives of missing persons called for “sincere cooperation from all parties involved so as to deliver justice and put an end to a purely humanitarian problem, which has plagued both communities in Cyprus for decades”.

It also called for “the intensification of the investigations conducted by the Committee on Missing Persons and the acceleration of identification procedures”.

“The memory of the missing is alive, and it is the duty of all of us to preserve it and to pass it on to new generations,” it said.

A total of 2,002 people were officially declared missing in the 60s and 70s, with the Committee on Missing Persons being established in 1981 and becoming operational in 2006 with the aim of locating and identifying them.

It has thus far exhumed 1,719 bodies and identified the remains of 1,082 people from the official list, as well as 217 others.

Of those identified, 317 were Turkish Cypriots and 765 were Greek Cypriots. A total of 745 Greek Cypriots and 175 Turkish Cypriots remain missing.

So far this year, the remains of four people have been found, with 19 having been identified. Eighteen of those identified were Greek Cypriots and the other was a Turkish Cypriot.