British Couple Must Demolish Cyprus Home, EU Top Court Says

(Bloomberg) -- A U.K. couple ordered by a Southern Cyprus court to demolish their holiday home in the northern part of the island, are bound by the ruling, the European Union’s highest court said.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg today said that a judgment from a judge in the Republic of Cyprus in the south must be recognized by EU countries even if it concerns land in the northern part of the island.

Linda and David Orams, a retired British couple have been entangled in litigation across Europe since the court’s 2004 order. Their dispute took a twist when London’s Court of Appeal in 2007 questioned whether the ruling could be enforced in Northern Cyprus, an area recognized only by Turkey and not part of the EU.

The ruling, which can’t be appealed and has to be followed by the U.K. court, has implications for thousands of Britons who own property in Northern Cyprus. The Orams, from Hove, England, said they invested 160,000 pounds ($230,000) in their holiday home in Lapithos, a region in the north occupied by Turkish troops in 1974.

The Cypriot court ordered the Orams to tear down their property in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, return the land and pay damages to Meletis Apostolides, an architect whose Greek Cypriot family originally owned the land.

Apostolides applied to have the judgment recognized in the U.K. which would allow him to seize the couple’s assets. He argued that since the U.K. and Cyprus were both EU member nations, the ruling was enforceable across the region.

The case is C-420/07 Apostolides v Orams.

ECJ to rule on Orams

(Cyprus Weekly) - FAR REACHING IMPLICATIONS FOR PROPERTY ISSUE

The European Court of Justice will on Tuesday rule on the high profile Orams case which is set to have far reaching effects on the issue of refugee properties in Cyprus.

The ECJ preliminary decision will determine whether EU citizens who are penalised by Cypriot courts for buying refugee property in the occupied part of Cyprus, can have the Cypriot court decision enforced against them in their home country under EU Regulation 44/2001.

It follows an appeal by Greek Cypriot refugee Meletis Apostolides, who sought to enforce a 2004 local court decision in the UK against David and Linda Orams for illegally building a luxury villa on his Lapithos property.

The Advocate General of the ECJ Juliane Kokott in an opinion published in December 2008 fully endorsed Apostolides’ arguments, expressing also the view that the negotiation efforts to solve the Cyprus problem do not constitute public policy grounds on which to reject the appeal.

But Apostolides’ lawyer Constantis Candounas in a press release this week stressed that the Advocate General’s Opinion is not binding on the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice.

Apostolides and his lawyer will give a conference on their return from Luxembourg.

Irrespective of the final outcome, Apostolides expressed thanks to the Government of Poland, the Hellenic Republic, the Government of the Republic of Cyprus as well as the Commission of the European Communities for submitting written observations in the proceedings before the ECJ.

Archaeologists Unearth Oldest Temple in Region

(Cyprus Weekly) - ITALIAN ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNEARTH OLDEST TEMPLE IN REGION

EXCLUSIVE By Demetra Molyva

Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe is the most ancient religious site in Cyprus and unique to the Mediterranean

The one of a kind, triangular shaped temple at Pyrgos-Mavroraki, outside Limassol, dates back to around 2,000 BC - beating previous discoveries by a thousand years.

It was unearthed by a team of Italian archaeologists led by Rome-based expert Maria Rosaria-Belgiorno of the Archaeological Mission of the Italian National Council for Research.

“This is the first evidence of religion in Cyprus at the beginning of the second millennium BC,” she told The Cyprus Weekly from Rome.

“The temple is the most ancient found in Cyprus and of a unique triangular shape. The finding sheds new light on the existence of religion on the island, since the oldest temple found in Cyprus before that was Kition and Enkomi, both dating to 1,000 BC,” she added.
The temple is not a rural sanctuary, but part of an urban, industrial settlement.

“We found no statues, although there is evidence that it is a monotheist temple. The most important thing is the altar and the blood channel running on two sides.”

The site is not Aegean-like, but resembles temples in Palestine and of the Canaanite religion, and has links to descriptions in the Bible.

“Among the finds we found stone horns which are more ancient than the consecration horns found in Kouklia, Enkomi, Kition, and Myrthou (Pighades) seven centuries later,” Belgiorno said.

The temple was brought to light during excavations in 2008, south of the industrial complex discovered previously.

The religious purpose of the building is confirmed by the materials found, including four calcarenite horns and bones from sacrificed animals.

The mission’s excavations at Pyrgos-Mavroraki began in 1998, and brought to light a protopalatial architectural unit of 4,000 sq. m of the third millennium BC.

Of particular importance was the discovery of an industrial zone, focusing on the production of olive oil, wine and aromatic essences.

An exhibition entitled “Cyprus, a site 4, 000 years old and experimental archaeology on the olive oil, perfumes, metallurgy and textiles of Pyrgos/Mavroraki” opens at the Etrusco National Museum in Viterbo, Italy on April 2.

Warning about purchasing in the "TRNC"

This web site was setup by disgruntled British property buyers in the north occupied part of the island.

Prominent Greek Americans send letter to President Obama and VP Biden

Greek American leaders send letter on the eve of the White House Greek Independence Day Celebration asking US leaders to reverse decision of administration officials to meet with Mr. Talat.

The letter:

March 20, 2009
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The Honorable Joseph Biden
Vice President of the United States
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Obama and Vice President Biden:
It has come to our attention that certain officials in your Administration are considering actions that are on the verge of extending the Bush Administration doctrine even further by establishing a Cyprus policy that contradicts both of your clearly articulated views on the issue. Please intervene before they cause America problems that will take years to correct.

Your Administration has not yet held high level contacts with either the President or the Foreign Minister of Cyprus. Thus, we are shocked to learn from a statement by the Turkish-Cypriot spokesman in Cyprus that they are now on the verge of establishing this Administration’s de facto recognition of an illegal entity in Cyprus’ militarily occupied area, while ignoring the internationally recognized Cyprus government. We understand that they plan to do this through high level Administration meetings with the leader of the pseudo-state before meetings with the President or Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cyprus.

You said to us in 2007, Mr. President, that America was “able to rely on Cyprus in the War on Terror and we were able to rely on Cyprus during the Lebanon Crisis.” Cyprus again demonstrated its support for U.S. security efforts by recently stopping an arms shipment from Iran to Hamas at U.S. urging. The last time Cyprus took such an action, Syria retaliated by taking a step toward de facto recognition of the occupied area of Cyprus by establishing ferry boat service to the north. If the people in your Administration follow through with these meetings, particularly before meeting with the government of Cyprus, our country will have punished Cyprus in the same way Syria did, by taking a step toward de facto recognition of the occupied area.

We know that you want, as you said to us, a “solution to the situation in Cyprus…based on the rule of law, not on force, one that is based on UN resolutions passed on the Cyprus issue, and on the very principles and standards of the EU….” Yet, the occupied area of Cyprus, with which your people are aligning you, is an anathema to those principles -- forced into place by more Turkish troops on that little island than America has in Afghanistan. Such de facto recognition will further solidify Turkish insistence on unreasonable Cyprus settlement provisions that virtually all Democrats on the Senate European Affairs Subcommittee objected to and which even a majority of the Republicans on that Subcommittee called “unacceptable to western democracies” in a letter to President Bush.

We understand that the Administration supports Turkey’s eventual accession into the European Union, as does the Republic of Cyprus. Pursuing anything that suggests de facto recognition of the occupation regime would not only be contrary to countless UN Security Council resolutions, but it would perhaps force the Republic of Cyprus to reconsider its stance with regard to Turkey and the EU.

Please overturn these misguided actions by people in your Administration. The Greek-American community that has been so committed to your Presidency and Vice Presidency, and the hope that they believed it would bring to the militarily occupied nation of Cyprus, will be devastated.

Sincerely,

Andrew A. Athens
Philip Christopher
Andy Manatos
Peter Papanicolaou
Nikos Mouyiaris
George Tsunis
Tasos Zambas
Endy Zemenides
Zenon Christodoulou
George Dovellos
Michael Galanakis

Turkey has to allow Christians to repair their destroyed churches

(Cyprus Weekly) - Church opens Brussels office

If Turkey wishes to have a European future, it has to allow Orthodox Christians to repair their destroyed churches and give them the opportunity to visit them whenever they wish, Archbishop Chrystostomos said in Brussels this week.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the Office of the Representation of the Church of Cyprus to the EU, in the heart of the Belgian capital, Chrysostomos said the Church has the obligation to inform its EU partners about the continuous destruction, looting and desecration of the Greek Orthodox religious sites by the Turkish army in the Turkish-held north.

“Our churches have been looted and destroyed and despite everything, our efforts to be allowed to repair them at our own expenses have been fruitless. On the contrary, their own holy sites in the government controlled areas have been maintained by our government. And they are allowed to use them whenever they wish,” Chrysostomos said.

The Archbishop stressed that 50,000 icons, frescoes, religious mosaics and other religious relics have been stolen from the places of worship in the occupied areas, since the 1974 Turkish invasion.

Some have been located in European and other auction houses and coordinated efforts by the church and the government have led to the repatriation of some of them after paying huge amounts of money.

Chrysostomos warned that the Church of Cyprus will go to the European Court of Human Rights and claim all legal remedies.

The office is headed by Bishop of Neapolis Porfyrios who also represents the Church in the EU.

Present at the inauguration ceremony were European officials including EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, MEPs, ambassadors from various countries, various representatives of Orthodox Churches and Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou.