CoE adopts report on Cyprus

The plenary of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe Standing Committee approved today in Strasbourg a report by rapporteurs Ian Micallef from Malta and Alan Lloyd from the UK, which said that ‘local representatives’ of the Turkish Cypriot community cannot be considered as members to the Congress.

The report was adopted this morning by the Congress with only three votes against, two of which were from Turkey.

The two rapporteurs noted in their report that ‘due to the non recognition of the ‘institutions’ of the so called ‘TRNC’ local representatives of the Turkish Cypriot community cannot be considered as members to the Congress.’

They also said that ‘there are Turkish settlers acting as local representatives and this raises a major issue of legitimacy, as these settlers are considered illegal as far as international law is concerned.’

‘Thus they cannot be considered as Turkish Cypriots local representatives under the provision of the Congress Resolution 170 (2004),’ they noted.