President Nicos Anastasiades has called on Turkey to open its army archives and end the agony felt by the Greek-and-Turkish Cypriot families of the missing persons who were lost during the 1974 Turkish invasion.

Last week, the UN agreed to open its own archives to the Committee on the Missing Persons (CMP), which needed new information to locate and identify the remains of two thousand people.

“The President of the Republic is satisfied because the decision of the United Nations is a result of the representations and the request made by the current Cypriot Government,” said Deputy-Spokesman Victor Papadopoulos.

In November 2015, occupying force Turkey lifted restrictions on 30 military areas in the north so the humanitarian organisation can carry on its work. But with such a large area to search, and dwindling witnesses who are still alive to point the CMP in the right direction, it has become steadily more difficult to bring closure to the relatives of the missing.