Letters sent to Sec. Rice, Rep. Hyde and all 440 Members of Congress;E-mail to 40,000 asks US omogenia to call or write their Representatives

CHICAGO, IL, July 5, 2005 οΏ½ Immediately after representing our οΏ½οΏ½οΏ½ Region with Regional Coordinating Council member Andreas D. Comodromos at the annual Cyprus Conference in Washington, D.C., V.P. and Regional Coordinator Chris P. Tomaras sent letters to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, International Relations Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Hyde and all 440 Members of Congress regarding Congressional trips to Occupied Northern Cyprus.  In the letters, Tomaras asks: οΏ½If the U.S. does not recognize a government in Occupied Northern Cyprus, how can our elected representatives even consider flying directly into, and entering the Island through, airports not authorized as official points of entry by the Republic of Cyprus that the U.S. does officially recognize?οΏ½ and declares, οΏ½We insist that any visit to Occupied Northern Cyprus you or your staff may be considering respect the sovereignty of the only government on the Island that the U.S. (and every other nation except Turkey) recognizes: the Republic of Cyprus.οΏ½   Tomaras closed the letter by saying, οΏ½The people of Cyprus have already suffered invasion and thirty years of occupation by Turkish military forces.  They do not need to suffer a new indignity, this time at the hands of the 109th Congress of the United States of America.οΏ½

Contrasting 4th of July celebrations with the crushing of CyprusοΏ½ independence by Turkish tanks, Tomaras also sent 50,000 Hellenes an e-mail message asking them to contact their Representatives and insist that if they visit Cyprus this summer, they not fly directly into the unauthorized airports of the Occupied North, an act at odds with U.S. and International Law, as well as U.N. Resolutions.  Rep. Bilirakis had sent his fellow-Representatives a background brief pointing out the problems with direct flights into the Occupied North.