Cyprus Euro MP takes down Turkish flag to show in Brussels

A daring Greek Cypriot politician, whose parliamentary immunity has been lifted in an investigation into his huge collection of antiquities, stole a Turkish flag Tuesday from a military post in the buffer zone.

European Parliament member Marios Matsakis sneaked past a U.N.-controlled line near Lourounjina east of the capital Nicosia and removed a Turkish flag from a security post saying the bunker was violating the military status quo of the area.

Matsakis, a member of President Tassos Papadopoulos’ ruling Democratic Party, said he intended to bring the flag to the European assembly in Brussels to show that Turkey was occupying a fellow member of the European Union.

“I might even give it as a present to members of the (European) parliament, especially the British who support Turkey,” he said.

But politicians were quick to distance themselves from Matsakis who has campaigned to remove British military bases from the island.

Government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomidis said: “Matsakis has his own way of expressing himself.”

Police raided Matsakis’ home last week and confiscated 140 antique chests and 100 one-tonne clay urns that officials claim were bought illicitly and probably from the Turkish occupied north.

The Euro MP said he felt betrayed by the government and that he intended to donate the antiques to a new folk museum.

The U.N. monitors a 180-kilometre strip of land running across the island that has been divided since Turkey invaded and occupied the north in 1974. It has a garrison of 35,000 troops and often challenges the U.N.-controlled buffer zone.

In 1996, Turkish soldiers killed a Greek Cypriot youth who attempted to climb a flagpole to remove a Turkish flag during a demonstration near Dherynia, a week after his relative was battered to death in the neutral zone.