FOREIGN Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides made a staggering revelation yesterday; he said that the government is not considering any steps to have Turkey condemned for the war crimes it has committed in Cyprus, and for which it has remained unpunished for all these years "because the National Council has not reached such a decision.''

He himself was merely carrying out instructions, he said, so his hands were tied, a strange approach for a Foreign Minister! 

He did say however that the issue is being handled through Cyprus' inter-state recourses against Turkey before the European Court of Human Rights. These recourses deal with human rights however and do not seek Turkey's condemnation for the mass murders and rapes carried out by the Turkish troops as part of the ethnic cleansing operation ordered by the Turkish government against the Greek Cypriot population of the north.

One would have expected the government to make every possible effort to have Bulent Ecevit branded as "Butcher Bulent,'' as part of the continuing political effort for a just settlement and the restitution of the rights of the numerous victims of Turkey's war crimes.

That it has not done so after all these years is beyond comprehension, particularly in view of Butcher Bulent's acceptance in international circles as a blameless and astute statesman!

The photographs of the smiling Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis shaking hands with Ecevit during the recent EU summit only tend to absolve Ecevit of any blame!

The acknowledgement of Turkey's war crimes becomes all the more necessary in view of the increasing intransigence of the Turkish side and the escalating demands for the legitimisation of all the crimes it has committed.

This intransigence is growing with ever-increasing arrogance as a reaction to the insistence by the European Union and the Security Council that a settlement must be based on the UN resolutions, and their rejection of the Turkish demand for the recognition of the illegal breakaway state.

Turkey denies committing any war crimes in Cyprus and keeps pressing for the acceptance of the "reality'' created by the enforced partition. 

It claims that a return of the Greek refugees would plunge the country into a new bloodbath, referring to the killing of Turkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriot extremists as justification for this claim.

There is no denying that atrocities were committed by both sides before the enforced partition. But the atrocities committed by Greek Cypriot extremists against Turkish Cypriots have been admitted by President Clerides and others, who point out that these crimes were not part of government policy, as in the case of the massive ethnic cleansing operation conducted by the Turkish army on its government's orders.

What needs to be done is a cleansing of the past through the establishment of a Truth Commission, along the lines of the similar operation carried out for reconciliation between black and white communities in South Africa. All those responsible for atrocities must be exposed. 

The pretence that Turkey did not commit any war crimes must end as a necessary development in the effort to reach a just and viable settlement that will enable Greek and Turkish Cypriots to live in peace and harma ony again.

If the National Council has not considered bringing Turkish war crimes before an international tribunal todate, as Cassoulides admitted yesterday, then it is time it did so, as part of a Truth Commission process."