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Turkish bid to join EU dealt blow
Special report: European integration
Turkey's troubled efforts to join the European Union received another setback yesterday when the European court of human rights ruled that Ankara had ridden roughshod over the human rights of thousands of Greek Cypriots when it invaded northern Cyprus in 1974.
Concluding that Turkey had violated the European human rights convention on 14 separate counts, the Strasbourg court decided by 16 votes to one that Ankara was in the wrong and should pay a hefty, as yet undecided, fine.
Among the complaints upheld was Turkey's failure to investigate the disappearance of Greek Cypriots after the 1974 invasion, and inhumane treatment of Greek Cypriots.
The charges were brought by the Greek Cypriot government, which controls the southern part of the island, and included general discrimination against Greek Cypriots living on the Karpas peninsula, in the Turkish-controlled north.
Turkey's bid to join the EU has already run into trouble for alleged human
rights abuses, dire prison conditions and its poor treatment of its ethnic
Kurdish minority. About 35,000 Turkish soldiers are still stationed in
northern Cyprus.
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