Cyprus has lodged a protest with the United Nations, saying U.N. peacekeepers could have tried to stop a Turkish crowd from beating a Greek Cypriot protester to death.
Tassos Isaac, 24, was killed Sunday in the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone that divides this Mediterranean island nation between Greek and Turkish Cypriot sectors.Forty-one others were injured when demonstrators stormed across the "green line" about 60 miles east of Nicosia to protest Turkish occupation of the north.
Foreign Minister Alecos Michaelides on Monday summoned the ambassadors of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and the U.N. resident representative to protest the killing, the official Cyprus News Agency reported Tuesday.
Michaelides told reporters that U.N. peacekeepers could have tried to rescue Isaac.
He also blamed the death on members of the Turkish Islamic Grey Wolves organization, saying Turkey brought in the militants to counter Sunday's protest.
"For the first time a terrorist group was brought to the island and I told the ambassadors I met that their arrival here should be condemned," Michaelides said.
There has been no official Turkish response to the allegations concerning the Grey Wolves.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded in July 1974 following a short-lived, Athens-backed coup by forces advocating unification with Greece.
The Turks captured the northern third of the island, which the minority Turkish Cypriots declared a separate republic in 1983. It is recognized only by Ankara, while the Greek Cypriot government is internationally recognized.