The Turkish side, wanting to acquire more Greek Cypriot land, proceeded to two important decisions - in terms of area and compensation - through the "real estate committee" in the occupied territories. A common feature of these two cases is that much of the land acquired by the "committee", for about six million euros, is located in the area of Kyrenia.
The first case concerns real estate located in the areas of Karava, Agios Georgios, Kyrenia and Kyrenia, for which its owners seem to have tried hard enough to sell it to the occupying regime. This is evidenced by the fact that the decision was taken after a "hearing" before the "committee", ie the property owners were not satisfied with the original decision and returned with the aim of a larger amount. The final agreement, through the settlement, closed at 3,8 million euros. For this amount, 20.448 square meters of land were sold in Karavas, 307 sq.m. in Agios Georgios, Kyrenia and 3.498 sq.m. in Kyrenia. The application to the "committee" for the sale of their property was registered on April 19, 2010.
The second case concerns real estate located in Kyrenia and five other areas of the occupied territories. In contrast to the previous one, the applicants agreed with the amount offered to them by the "committee", which amounts to 1,9 million euros. The applicants had resorted to the "committee" in order to sell their property on August 18, 2011. The properties sold are located in Kyrenia 58.537 sq.m., Trimithi 13.807 sq.m., Templos 6.355 sq.m., Karmi 2.341 sq.m., Agios Epiktitos 12.711 sq.m. and Vatilika 29.039 . The amount would have been a bit higher but for another piece of land in Vatili with an area of 18.733 sqm, the ownership status was not proven.
The six million that will be paid to the Greek Cypriot owners will be deposited by the "committee" in accounts in a British bank, as is the standard practice followed in such cases. It should also be noted that there have been several other decisions involving smaller amounts.
Few applications, many decisions
The main workload of the "committee" is now to deal with the thousands of applications that Greek Cypriots have registered as the rate of new registrations has decreased sharply in the last year. By the first fortnight of October, a total of 6.223 applications had been registered (since the establishment of the "committee"). There are 5.359 applications pending before the "committee" as there were decisions for only 722 applications, while another 142 had been withdrawn.
Of these cases for which decisions were made, 703 were through amicable settlement and 19 after a hearing. The "committee" paid the Greek Cypriots, in order to buy their land, an amount of 287,4 million euros. The total area acquired so far through the "committee" covers 15,5 square kilometers. The applications that had been withdrawn concern a total area of land of 3,5 square kilometers, while for 2,4 km the ownership status of the applicants was not proven.