A bipartisan resolution condemning Turkey’s illegal occupation of Cyprus has been submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives by Representatives Nicole Maliotakis, Gus Bilirakis, Chris Pappas and Dina Titus, encouraging the elected US President Donald Trump to make the resolution of the Cyprus problem a top foreign policy priority.

The resolution “strongly condemns Turkey’s continued occupation of Cyprus, and calls upon Turkey to immediately withdraw all of its estimated 35,000 occupying troops from the island and to adhere to the democratic principles and mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”.

It “reiterates that the settlement of the Cyprus problem needs to be based on a bizonal, bicommunal federation in a State with single sovereignty and international personality, and that this entity should embrace constitutional democratic norms and American principles, the European Union (EU) acquis communautaire and EU Founding Treaty, United Nations resolutions on Cyprus, and pertinent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and other European courts”.

Furthermore, it “calls on Turkey to cease and desist from its illegal interference in the Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone and calls on the Turkish Government to provide avenues for American citizens to seek financial remedies or restitution for their property losses in the Turkish-occupied territory of Cyprus”.

It also “demands Turkey’s cooperation in helping recover the four American citizens who are still missing as a result of the 1974 invasion of Cyprus, calls on Turkey to remove its over 200,000 illegal settlers from Turkish-occupied Cyprus and assist in repatriating Greek-Cypriot refugees to their ancestral homes and encourages President Trump to make the resolution of the Cyprus problem a top foreign policy priority for his Administration”.

The resolution said that “the government of Turkey ordered its military to invade the Republic of Cyprus in 1974 in violation of the Treaty of Establishment, the Treaty of Alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty, and the Treaty of Guarantee, which established the Republic of Cyprus and guaranteed the independence of the Republic of Cyprus, as well as the United Nations Charter and customary international law”.

It added that “the government of Turkey has tolerated or abetted the desecration of more than 500 Orthodox Christian churches and religious sites in the territory of the Republic of Cyprus that the Turkish military occupies”.

Turkey’s government “has brought in over 200,000 illegal settlers into the occupied area of Cyprus to change the sociopolitical and demographic fabric of the area, in violation of the Geneva Conventions,” the resolution said.

It also noted that ” Turkey has failed to support international efforts to find and identify the remains of persons, including four United States citizens who remain missing since the Turkish invasion of the Republic of Cyprus in 1974.”

It also stressed that “Turkey illegally violates the Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone” and that “President Erdogan has illegally reopened the beach in Varosha, a once-thriving tourist town which the Turkish military ethnically cleansed of its Greek Cypriot population in 1974”.