According to an article published today in Politis newspaper, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are much more similar genetically to each other than Greek Cypriots to Greeks and Turkish Cypriots to Turks. The fact was revealed by Prof. Costantinos Delta director of Molecular and Medical Genetics department at the University of Cyprus after 20 year long research. The findings were presented at the headquartes of the International Insitute for the Environment and Public health at a lecture titles ‘The Genetic Heritage of Cypriots in light of 20 years of Research’

The professor noted that these similarities support the historical evidence that state that many Greek Cypriots converted to Islam during the Ottoman Empire rule because of oppression and poverty. He also added that it is naive to believe that Cypriots are pure Greeks or Turks since our genetic pool contains genes from many other nations.