NICOSIA - Relatives of Turkish Cypriot missing persons took the unusual step on Wednesday of petitioning the Cyprus government in person for information on the fate of their loved ones.
Eight Turkish Cypriots led by their lawyer Emine Erk travelled to the presidential palace to deliver a petition to officials expressing "concern" over delays in tracing the whereabouts of the disappeared.
"We have handed a written application to the presidency and the foreign ministry asking for details regarding the fate of the relatives' loved ones," Erk told reporters after an hour-long meeting with officials.
Erk said the relatives were upset that they had received no official word on progress in the two years since they provided blood samples for DNA identification of exhumed remains.
Presidential spokesman Marios Karoyan said government officials renewed their pledge to do everything in their power to resolve the long-standing humanitarian issue.
"There was a frank and cordial exchange of views. We reiterated the Cyprus government's will to do all that is humanly possible to resolve the problem that concerns all relatives of missing persons," Karoyan said.
A UN-led Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) has been tasked with overseeing exhumations on both sides of the island under the supervision of UK-based forensics experts INFORCE.
Last week, the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot members of the tripartite committee agreed on a DNA procedure to identify exhumed remains, overcoming a major hurdle to digging.
There are 500 Turkish Cypriots officially listed as missing since the outbreak of intercommunal violence in the early 1960s.
07/06/2005 13:38 GMT