Turks refuse to pay for lost lands of Greek Cypriots

HOW CAN Titina Loizidou obtain the money which the European Court of Human Rights has told Turkey to pay her? In theory, at least, Turkey could be expelled from the Council of Europe - the one European body to which it belongs - for defying the court's ruling that it must pay pounds 370,000 (plus pounds 24,500 damages) for Mrs Loizidou's loss of access to her property in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus.

Mrs Loizidou is a Greek Cypriot who grew up in Kyrenia - which, since Turkey's 1974 invasion of the island, has been the Turkish Cypriot port of Girne - and she has been campaigning since 1990 to return to her plot of olive and carob trees above the sea. She speaks so quietly in her Nicosia lawyer's office that the distant traffic almost drowns her words, but there is no doubting her determination. Four times she joined women's demonstrations to "walk" back to Kyrenia, only to be stopped by Turkish troops and UN soldiers. Her lawyer, Achileas Demetriades, is already asking himself how to force the Turks to pay up.

"We cannot claim Turkish property like an embassy or an ambassador's car because that is covered by diplomatic immunity," he says. "But perhaps we will have to look at other property owned by the Turkish state - an aircraft, for instance." Mr Demetriades is smiling. One can almost see a writ being slapped on the hull of a Turkish Airlines plane at Heathrow or Brussels or Amsterdam. "I'm not saying exactly what we will do - but we are considering all possibilities," he adds.

The authorities in Ankara were given until 28 October to come up with the money but after complaining that the case was political they have simply ignored the court's decision. In the words of one of the dissenting judges - needless to say, it was the Turkish representative, Judge Golcuklu - Mrs Loizidou's claim "is likely to become the prototype for a whole series of similar cases which will in all probability be resolved by political bodies." In other words, if the Turks cough up pounds 394,500 for her, they'll be faced with millions of pounds worth of further claims from dispossessed Greek Cypriots.

"That's the trick the Turks are playing," Mr Demetriades says. "The moment you say the case is a big one, you fall into the trap that you are saying it's political. Obviously there is a political dimension to this case. But if Turkey doesn't want to pay, this is obviously an insult to the European Court system." Ironically, the last time the 40-nation council applied sanctions against a member which defied its ruling was in 1970 - against Greece and its military junta. Which may be why the Turkish Embassy in London now goes so far as to insist that Turkey has no jurisdiction on Cyprus, a view that might surprise the thousands of Turkish troops based in the north of the island, not to mention the tens of thousands of Turkish settlers now living there.

Mrs Loizidou is certainly a fluent proponent of her own case, speaking warmly of her former Turkish Cypriot neighbours and accepting that - if she was allowed to return to Kyrenia - she would be living in a changed land. "All I want to do is go back to my property and use it peacefully. I want to build a home there - it was the intention of my grandfather that we should all have houses on that land. And I would go back if I was allowed - even though I know it would not be the same. The decision of the court is not giving back what I applied for, which is my life in Kyrenia. I didn't just lose my property but also my way of life, being with my family there and my neighbours, the quality of life I had there."

Like those Palestinians who often remember a mythical paradise of Jewish- Arab trust in mandate Palestine, Greek Cypriots sometimes fantasise about the supposed closeness of Greek-Turkish relations before the 1974 Turkish invasion. When Mrs Loizidou last had access to pre-invasion Kyrenia, she had to travel there in convoy because of the animosity which existed between Greek Cypriots and the enclaved Turkish citizens of the island. Besides, she has lived in Nicosia for almost a quarter of a century with her husband Andreas; her two children, Vassos and Heleni, are studying in Britain.

So would Titina Loizidou really go back to a town that is no longer Greek? Part of her sister's house is now lived in by a Turkish Cypriot family driven from southern Cyprus by Greek Cypriots in 1974. "But neighbours who talked to a German visitor remembered my family," Mrs Loizidou says. "They remembered my grandfather because he had delivered their children. They sent their regards to my father and me. These bonds still exist."