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Cyprus

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on securing the debate so early in the new year and so soon after the appointment of Georgios Iacovou as the new high commissioner to London. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House would wish to welcome Mr. Iacovou to his post, and I had the opportunity to do so formally in Margate at the blessing of the seas on Sunday. We should place on record our appreciation for the work that he has done and for the work that we hope he will do. The hon. Gentleman’s grasp of Cypriot politics is arguably second to none in either House of Parliament, and he also has a grasp of the legal issues, so I do not propose to go over the same ground. Instead, I want to put a human face on the issue, and I can almost hear the groans coming from one quarter as I mention the name of George Geroletiou. He is well known to colleagues who take an interest in Cyprus affairs. Indeed, that is literally true, because he is a personal friend in many cases. He also happens to be one of my constituents, although the Minister probably does not know him. George is British. He was born in January 1913, so he is 94 this month. He was born in Komi Kebir, which was quite a thriving town close to the Karpas, but which is now almost a ghost village. He was born in a house in which his father and his grandfather had lived before him. He emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1935 to work and seek his fortune, and he did well. He joined the Royal Air Force at the start of the second world war and served in it for four and a half years. For part of that time, he served with Glafcos Clerides, the former and distinguished President of the Republic of Cyprus. He served in India, Burma and Ceylon—he was not sitting on his backside in pretty places. As a citizen of the United Kingdom, he served this country and put his life on the line, as so many people, including former President Clerides, did at that time. In 1970, long after the war, and having concluded a successful business career, George Geroletiou and his British wife, Ivy, decided to live back in Cyprus, the land of George’s birth. They built a villa outside Famagusta, in a hamlet called Tricomo, right on the coast. It was a beautiful place in a beautiful location, with a view over the sea. The villa was completed in 1970, and George and Ivy spent two winters in their home before moving there for what they thought would be the whole of their retirement. They hoped to see their family—their children and their grandchildren—enjoy the property. By 1974, Tricomo was on the Turkish side of the green line, and George Geroletiou’s property had been appropriated by the Turks. He did not go back until relatively recently. He came to see me in the Central Lobby in 1983, shortly after I was elected to the House. He asked me to use my good offices as his Member of Parliament to get him back his home, or what he and Ivy had come to regard as their home. For 23 years, I have been trying to do just that, with a signal lack of success, I have to say. I do not want to point too many fingers, however, because there have been failures on the part of successive Governments. I am as deeply ashamed of the lack of progress made by the Conservative Governments of the 1980s and 1990s as I am of that made by the current Government. George is 94. He was hospitalised last summer, although, happily, he has made a recovery. I told him that he has to go on for two reasons. First, I want him to get his telegram from the Queen. Secondly, he has damn well got to stay alive until he gets his property back, however long that takes—and he could become the oldest citizen in the country if we have to wait too much longer. What he cannot understand, however, is why his country—the country for which he fought and in which he worked and paid taxes—is prepared to do so little to help him get back his stolen home. A couple of years ago, after the green line was opened, George and I went up to Komi Kebir and saw the place of his birth. It was a pretty little cottage, which is now occupied by a Turkish Cypriot lady of advancing years. She actually remembered George just before he left Cyprus in 1935. She invited us in, and we sat down and had coffee with her. I did not understand a word that they were saying, but they jabbered away for yonks in a Cypriot dialect that was part Greek and part Turkish. Of course, that is the kind of relationship that exists between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots when they are allowed to get on with their own lives, although, in the main, they are not allowed to do so now, at least in Cyprus. From Komi Kebir, George and I went down to Tricomo and saw his villa, although we were not allowed into it. It was ““owned”” by a Turk, and there was a Turkish name by the little post-box slotted into the gates. A bulldozer was digging a swimming pool in George Geroletiou’s garden for the illegal Turkish occupant’s use. Imagine how that old man felt. Imagine how he and others living and working in this country feel about our Government. I have to tell the Minister, however, that it gets even worse than that. Following the referendum, in which the Cypriots dared to say no, as was their complete democratic right, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom went to Ankara and condemned the Republic of Cyprus in terms for daring to vote no. That referendum was largely constructed by the now Lord Hannay, who, as far as I can see, has been ennobled for his failure. It was impossible for Cypriots who understood the future of Cyprus to vote yes, because the referendum, which was held under Annan V, the plan to which hon. Members referred earlier, did not deal with the three key issues. The plan did not deal with the settlers, illegal immigrants and Anatolian Turks whom Turkey dumped in the north of Cyprus. That has now resulted in the literal exclusion of Turkish Cypriots, who have left their island in droves. There is a myth that such movements are just a Greek Cypriot problem, but they are also a Turkish Cypriot problem. Those of us who have been to the island understand only too well that a generation of settler children have grown up on the island and regard themselves as Cypriot. As Cyprus is the only home that they have ever known, they have to be regarded as Cypriot, but that has compounded the problem. Nor did the referendum deal with the issues of armed forces of occupation in the north. It said that there would be a phased scaling down of Turkish troops in the northern part of the island and that a token presence would be ultimately left. Would the United Kingdom, having fought the war in the Falklands, seriously have tolerated a token Argentine force on the islands, on British territory? Of course it would not. If soldiers from another country wish to come to the United Kingdom at our invitation and train and work here and mix with our own servicemen and women, that is their business—at our invitation, but not imposed. The second key issue was not dealt with in Annan V. The third issue—the one that I have spent rather too much time dwelling on—is property, and that was not dealt with either. There was no solution to what Cypriots—Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots—regard as one of the key problems. When George Geroletiou and I went through the green line up to see his home, we passed scores—hundreds—of little boxes. They were white concrete ““Stop me and buy one”” villas, most of which had the names of British businesses outside them as marketing agencies and very many of which have been acquired by citizens of the United Kingdom—many living in this country—as holiday homes. The hon. Member for Hendon pointed out that that has done no good at all for the tourism industry in the north of Cyprus, because all the people who were going and staying in hotels are now going and living in their villas, and they expect to be able to go on doing so for a very long time. That has compounded the settlement problem, because now those people have to be dealt with as well. They may have been warned by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in small print on a website that it was a bad idea and that they might lose their properties, but no Minister yet has been prepared—although perhaps this Minister will be this afternoon—to stand up and say, ““You will lose those properties, so your £10,000, £15,000 or £20,000 is money down the drain—lost, gone—if you buy stolen property. That is what is happening.””