A Turkish man is traveling to Greece to undergo DNA testing that will reveal whether he was a Greek Cypriot child kidnapped by the Turkish army during its invasion into Cyprus in 1974. His case is not the first of this type, however the organization of families of missing persons of Cyprus, Nicos Theodosiou, said that such a story should not be made public before conclusive evidence is gathered. “The press needs to exercise more restraint so that no more grief is caused to the families,” he said.

The Cyprus Foreign Ministry has also expressed skepticism over the man’s claims. Similar claims in the past have been groundless. “Such reports often cause unfair and unnecessary emotional distress to the relatives of missing persons,” said a statement by the Cyprus Foreign Ministry.

An unnamed source states that the man claims to have evidence that he may be a Cypriot missing person, kidnapped while he was still a child. A similar case had come up in 1007 when Turkish national Hakan Kutevu claimed he was Christakis Georgiou, kidnapped from Turkey when aged five. DNA testing in that case had proved negative.