THE Cyprus government has started a diplomatic offensive against the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Rauf Denktash, and the mainland Turkish government. Cyprus is alleging their direct responsibility for clashes in the UN controlled buffer zone on August 11th and 14th during which two Greek Cypriot men were killed.
The first, Mr Tassos Issac, was beaten to death by an armed group of demonstrators who entered the buffer zone from behind the Turkish lines, while the second, Mr Solomos Solomou, was shot dead by a Turkish soldier while trying to tear down a flag at a Turkish post.
The accusations, contained in a file of photographs and eyewitness accounts, were presented by the Cypriot Foreign Minister, Mr Alecos Michaelides, to the ambassadors here of the five permanent members of the Security Council and of the European Union. One photograph was said to be of Mr Denktash at the site of the clashes on August 11th.
In the photograph he is seen with his camera taking photographs with a telephoto lens of the confrontation in which elements of the mainland extremist Grey Wolves" movement were involved.
The Turkish Foreign Minister, Mrs Tansu Ciller, has been accused of exporting terrorism" by funding the visit of 3,000 Grey Wolves" to Cyprus where they were greeted by Mr Denktash.
This grouping, founded in the 1950s by a Turkish Cypriot, Mr Alparslan Turkesh, claimed responsibility for the murder of a Turkish Cypriot opposition journalist, Kutlu Adali, in July.
A leading international lawyer, Prof Claire Palley, told the UN Sub Commission on Human Rights last week that Mr Adali had been killed to prevent him from testifying before the European Human Rights Commission on Turkey's violations of human rights in Cyprus. Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, had links with the "Grey Wolves".
Cyprus is expected to take the murder cases to the European Human Rights Commission.
Greece has supported Cyprus in its campaign to make Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots accountable for the events in the buffer zone.
On the political front, the Greek lawyers' association has supported Cyprus's legal action, while Athens has also speeded up implementation of its three year old defence pact with Cyprus. Concluding a two day visit here yesterday, the Greek Defence Minister, Mr Gerassimos Arsenis, said that this pact was aimed at preventing "threats to Hellenism".
On Saturday Mr Arsenis and President Glafkos Clerides of Cyprus welcomed at Limassol port the Greek naval landing craft Samos after its voyage from Thrace through the Aegean to Cyprus, symbolising the ties, Mr Clerides said, "that bind all Greeks, particularly those in the Aegean and Cyprus," who feel under threat from Turkey.
Reuter adds: Greece's defence pact with Cyprus has boosted the negotiating position of both countries and changed the military balance that previously favoured Turkey, Greece's Minister for Defence. Mr Gerassimos Arsenis, said yesterday.
"The doctrine of unified defence is a reality," Mr Arsenis told a news conference in Nicosia.
