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| European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Friday ruled that Greek Cypriots are required to apply first to a Turkish Cypriot property commission before they seek redress at the ECHR for immovable properties they left behind in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). The ECHR's ruling on eight cases affirms the authority of the Turkish Cypriot Immovable Property Commission as an effective domestic remedy and it sets a precedent for some other 1,500 similar suits before the ECHR, The ruling orders the applicants to exhaust all local legal remedies before they apply to the ECHR. The court said the applications on these eight cases were inadmissable, highlighting that the Turkish Cypriot commission "was an appropriate domestic body, with access to the relevant information, and a clearly the more appropriate forum for deciding on complex matters of property ownership and valuation and assessing financial compensation." Over 450 Greek Cypriot applications have been made to the Turkish Cypriot commission with nearly 100 of them have been settled. The commission ordered for some 40 million pounds of compensation up to now. |