Cyprus-Forum.com

[Tim Drayton]

More on the story about the decision to change place names back to their original form. Strangely, I can only find reports about this in far right-wing Turkish Cypriot and mainland Turkish newspapers. I wonder if this whole thing is a fabrication aimed at discrediting the current leadership? According to the reports in these same sources, the authorities put up a re-named street sign in the village of Zeybekköy/Agios Evstathios, but were immediately obliged to remove it due to the outrage it caused, and the whole programme to revert to former names has been abandoned.
If it is true, this affair has been totally hushed up since then because I can find no reference to it in any respectable publications.
For example, I provide my translation of an excerpt from Aydın Akkurt’s column in Volkan dated 10 August 2006.
www.volkangazetesi.net/index.php?action ... t&aid=2034
(...)The first place to be selected was Zeybekköy in Yeni Iskele district. When the residents of Zeybekköy awoke on the morning of 19 April 2006, they saw a sign in the village square. On the sign was written “AY LUKA”.
The villagers informed VOLKAN of this situation. It was very hard to believe this. The villagers were saying, “We will pull up this sign and break it on their heads.” I told them to stay calm. I called Ayla Yıldız and Hasan Keskin in Famagusta. Ayla Yıldız went to Zeybekköy and, taking a photograph of the sign placed in the village square, sent it to me. I could not believe my eyes. “AY LUKA” was written on the sign.
I immediately called the Yeni Iskele District Governor. He did not take my call, getting them to say, “He isn’t here.” So I spoke to the Deputy District Governor. I said, “Haven’t you got anything else to do?.” This is a summary of what he said in reply: “Because the name of the square on old title deed records is Ay Luka, it was done in accordance with this.”
We gave coverage to this matter. In response to the massive reaction that broke out, in the same way as they put this sign in the village square, once again they took it away in the night. (...)

[iceman]

Something tells me that in everyday speaking Turkish Cypriots themselves use the customary names they used in the past and not the artificial names introduced in the Turkification process.

That is correct...

[denizaksulu]

Something tells me that in everyday speaking Turkish Cypriots themselves use the customary names they used in the past and not the artificial names introduced in the Turkification process.

That is correct...

Thats right. I havent got a clue either. They sound very disjointed - lacking history.