Speech #1090146410

Adding urgency to the plight of GreekCypriots and Americans who lost property in the wake of the invasion is a recent property development boom in the Turkishoccupied north of Cyprus. As an everincreasing number of disputed properties are transferred or developed. the rightful owners prospects for recovering their property or being compensated worsen. In 1998. the European Court of Human Rights found that Turkey had unlawfully deprived Greek Cypriot refugees of the use of their properties in the north of the island. The Court ruled that the Government of Turkey was obliged to compensate the refugees for such deprivation. and to allow them to return home. It is to provide similar redress to the American victims of Turkeys invasion and occupation of Cyprus that my colleague Senator MENENDEZ and I today introduce the AmericanOwned Property in Occupied Cyprus Claims Act. A substantively identical bill has been proposed in the House of Representatives by Representative PALLONE and 32 of his Republican and Democratic colleagues.