EDINBURGH (Sputnik) – Cyprus could learn from Ireland's peace process to help build a lasting sense of truth and reconciliation, former Irish Republican Army (IRA) member and now a member of the European Parliament said Thursday.
"Truth and reconciliation are just as important to Cyprus as they are in Ireland," Martina Anderson said in a statement at the European Parliament.
Anderson is a member of an Irish republican party Sinn Fein, which is active in both the republic of Ireland and UK-controlled Northern Ireland.
Anderson, who spent 12 years in prison following her conviction for conspiracy to cause explosions and membership of the IRA, compared Cyprus to Ireland saying there were "many similarities" between the two.
She also called on Turkey to reveal the location of missing people believed to have been executed and secretly buried during the conflict in Cyprus which ended with the establishment of a UN "buffer zone" separating the two sides in 1974.
"All efforts must be made to locate the bodies of those still missing, just as republicans have co-operated with the Commission for the Location of Victims Remains and made public calls for anyone with information to come forward," Anderson said.
Cyprus was de facto divided between the Greek and Turkish communities in 1974, when Turkey invaded the island after a coup staged by the supporters of a Greek military junta.
According to United Nations, there are around 2,000 people still missing following the decades-long bloodshed. Over the past months, the UN Committee on Missing Persons has exhumed mass graves on both sides of a demarcation line between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
