Frank and Joan's news for 02 June 2009 in Northern Cyprus

Frank and Joan's Adventures in Northern Cyprus

Our adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....

More about the conflict between the North and the South. According to the press the follow up to the Orams case is a couple who live in Karaman. This obviously required a newspaper journalist to write an article about this typical Greek village which had been stolen from them. The response to this article is the attached letter.

Karmi properties were abandoned before 1974

I read with interest your recent article concerning Karmi village in north Cyprus.

Your choice of Karmi as, apparently, an archetypal Greek Cypriot village now owned by foreigners is simply incorrect.

The great majority of properties within the actual village are leasehold and administered by the Ministry of Tourism. It is true that most of these houses are leased to foreigners as this was the decision of the newly installed administration in the north, post 1974.

The village houses have been

substantially renovated and maintained, at the leaseholders’ expense, to standards set by the Ministry of Tourism.

There is, therefore, no conceivable connection between the situation in Karmi and the other well publicised property disputes surrounding the sale of disputed freeholds to foreigners.

Frankly, the most minimal amount of research by your correspondent would have revealed this information. Viewing of widely available photographs from the period would also have shown that there were very few habitable properties in the village in 1974.

The reason for this was that Karmi, along with many isolated villages, had been largely abandoned mainly due to transport difficulties. There was little work in these villages and, quite obviously, few people owned cars at that time.

A nice response and one well justified. We know the couple who are due to be attacked by the dodgy Greek lawyer trying to gain more publicity and if you had seen the amount of work they needed to do to the property to make it in any way habitable, you would have realised how true this is.

Add to this some of the development that is going on in the North, for example see www.portcypriummarina.com, rumoured to be costed at £8 million; and you will realise that all the "Do not buy in TRNC" rubbish that the press is pushing is a load of nonsense. This is a country that is developing rapidly despite the rest of the world.

In this vain I believe that the Tonight program that was delayed will be transmitted on Friday on ITV 1 at 8 p.m. Would anybody like to put money on a rubbish program just like the last one, but maybe it makes good viewing and earns advertising income. Nothing to do with good research and the truth.