Cyprus-Forum.com

[Get Real!]

And since when you are a "country" mate? You are a minority, the remnants of the Ottoman rule, just like you exist in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and many other places that Turks spread their kind during their brutal rule.

If you can not live and assimilate with Cypriots then go back to Turkey. As simple as that. We didn't force you to come and live with us, remember?

Exactly!

And to think poor Halil joined the forum to get to know his compatriots and distant cousins a little better to make his own judgement. He even thought he clould bond and make friends with some forum members.

Halil we are not Greek, we are Turks, we were not invited to Cyprus and dont belong. I guess we'll have to make do with our friends in the North.

So which part of Piratis' post is technically wrong?

My father always says "domuzdan post rumdan dost olmaz"

Ok, my little Turkish translates that as: "We (TCs) should settle down and quit screwing around!" ..so I'd have to agree with dad!

[EPSILON]

United Cyprus under a Democratic state.

Total number of citizens of Cyprus for example 1million. Everybody allowed to be candidate to be elected as member of the government and every citizen has one vote.

Above valid all over the World-Democratic state.

Lets go for it

brgds

[EPSILON]

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Prime Minister-designate Yves Leterme's bid to form a center-right government collapsed Thursday after all-night negotiations failed to resolve a deadlock over the sharing of power among federal authorities and rival Dutch- and French-speaking regions.

After five weeks of fruitless negotiations, Leterme resigned his mandate to form a government to King Albert, who interrupted his vacation in France and flew back to Brussels Thursday evening.

The monarch was now expected to ask a French-speaking politician to sound out political leaders on what government should be formed based on the June 10 election results.

Leterme said he found it "impossible at the moment to draft an ambitious government program requested by voters."

Above for Belgium- can you imagine this country to be populated with Greeks and Turks?

[EPSILON]

A majority of voters in both Scotland and England want the countries to split.

Failing that, both think England should have a Parliament of its own deciding on English affairs without any involvement of Scottish MPs.

The poll findings demonstrate deep and potentially fatal cracks in the 300-year union of the two countries, and threaten to present Gordon Brown with a constitutional crisis if he becomes Prime Minister.

In a further blow to Mr Brown, a majority in both countries want him to call an election within a year of coming to power, to secure his own mandate from the voters.

The ICM survey of attitudes on the Union and nationality was commissioned by the Daily Mail in advance of next week's 300th anniversary of the ratification of the treaty which bound Scotland and England together.

It shows that nearly half of those polled think the arrangement is unlikely to survive more than 25 years.

Two out of three English voters want an end to the subsidies paid to Scotland, and a majority want to end the anomaly that gives Scots MPs at Westminster a say over legislation which affects only England.

The results suggest that Mr Brown's first months in office after succeeding Tony Blair later this year will be dominated by a massive constitutional headache. There will be crucial elections in Scotland in May and the Chancellor is braced for a damaging rejection in his own back yard as voters prepare to throw out Labour and turn to the nationalists.

The ICM survey finds a majority of voters in both countries want him to call an early election to secure his own mandate against David Cameron's Tories.

Pressure to go to the polls will intensify if he finds himself leading a party that not only failed to command a majority of votes in England at the last general election, but has been defeated in its Scottish heartland.

Mr Brown will also be disappointed that the poll indicates his attempts to promote the idea of Britishness have fallen on deaf ears on both sides of the border.

Just 31 per cent of people in England say they are British first, and only 15 per cent in Scotland.

And despite a decade of constitutional tinkering by Labour, the survey fails to record a significant level of enthusiasm for devolution in Scotland. Fewer than 40 per cent of Scots say it has been a good thing, while the level of approval in England is even lower.

With recent polls showing the Scottish National Party building a lead against Labour in the race for power at Holyrood, the Mail's survey confirms that pressure for Scottish independence is building inexorably.

It shows that more than half of Scots - 51 per cent - want Scotland to break away. So do 48 per cent of English respondents, again a clear majority of those who expressed an opinion one way or the other.

There is even stronger support for an English parliament, with 51 per cent backing the move in England and 58 per cent in Scotland.

And there was solid backing for England to have its own Prime Minister or First Minister - 54 per cent in England and 62 per cent in Scotland.

Among the English, 53 per cent want Scots MPs at Westminster to be barred from voting on issues that affect England only, such as health and education. A majority of Scots who expressed a view also want to see Scots MPs' voting rights restricted.

Nearly two out of three voters want Mr Brown to call an election within a year of taking over.

Monday marks 300 years since the Treaty of Union was passed by Parliament. The 300th anniversary of the Act of Union itself will be marked on May 1 - just two days before Scots go to the polls.

A Labour-led coalition has run Scotland since the first elections for the Scottish parliament in 1999. But voters have been turning away in droves and now appear ready to elect the SNP, which has pledged a referendum on independence.

Although Mr Cameron has promised to defend the Union, he has also called for reforms to address the so-called West Lothian Question - which asks why Scots MPs are able to vote on purely English matters at Westminster while English MPs no longer have a say on Scottish domestic affairs.

Asked about the future of the Union at the weekend, Mr Brown told the BBC Sunday AM programme: "I know that England is 85 per cent of the Union. And England at any point can outvote the rest of the Union.

"The reason why we had devolution was to recognise the different views and the decision-making processes in some other parts of the country. But at the end of the day this is a Union that is built around an England that is 85 per cent of the Union."

He added: "Let's not forget the strengths of the United Kingdom, and let's also not forget that a policy of English votes for English laws would in the end break up the United Kingdom, because the executive would have to owe its authority to simply the English members."


CAN YOU IMAGINE CITIZENS TO BE GREEKS AND TURKS?

[EPSILON]

The Washington-based National Albanian American Council (NAAC) has circulated a short "Summary Fact Sheet" on Albanian discontents and demands in Macedonia. [For full text , see Appendix A, at the end]

The paper lists eight "changes" which "must be made immediately if Macedonia is to prevent a wider war." The threat is clear. The demands are impossible to satisfy "immediately" – some of them have been met already and others involve social and political processes that take time, as well as mutual good will which is not fostered by the threat of "a wider war." The stated objective of this "fact sheet" is to get the United States to intervene along the pattern of previous U.S. intervention in Kosovo. By justifying the armed insurgency as a defense of "human rights," the NAAC hopes to exert U.S. power on behalf of the same violent Albanian nationalists to whom NATO delivered Kosovo.

To start with, one must keep in mind that the central fallacy behind disastrous "international community" intervention in former Yugoslavia over the past decade has been the assumption that "human rights" are the central issue. This assumption has been vigorously promoted by Albanian lobbies in the United States and Europe, such as the National Albanian American Council. As a result of the single-minded focus on "human rights," complaints couched in human rights terms and echoed by such lobbies enjoy an instant credibility denied the accused governments, which are under constant suspicion of bad faith.

It is certain that in very many countries in the world, statistics can show marked differences in wealth and social position between different sectors of the population, depending on race, religion or national origin. This is most famously the case in the United States of America, where income and participation in the administration of wealth, government, the media, academia and the judicial branch are far from equally distributed between citizens of European, African, Native American and Hispanic origin, for instance.

In light of the well-known inequality within American society, why do Albanians appeal to the United States to "do something" about inequality in Macedonia? This must have less to do with the proven ability of the United States to provide its own citizens with the total equality sought by the Albanians in Macedonia than with two other factors: (1) the proven power and willingness of the United States to interfere in the Balkans on behalf of its Albanian clients; and (2) the effort to equate the demands of Albanians in Macedonia with similar demands of minorities in the United States. To clarify this second point: in the United States, the demands for equality of African-Americans have not, in recent times, been in any way tinged with the slightest suspicion that such demands are merely a step toward achieving territorial autonomy to be followed by secession. This differentiates demands for equality in the United States very sharply from Albanian demands in Kosovo and Macedonia. Those Albanian demands are broadly understood in both Serbia and Macedonia, by all sides, as steps toward territorial autonomy and even secession, changing borders to create a "Greater Albania."

THE ETHNICITIES IN THIS CASE ARE MUCH MORE RELATIVE TO OUR CASE

[EPSILON]

Spain and ETA

Basque troubles
Jun 7th 2007 | MADRID
From The Economist print edition

A broken Basque peace process spells trouble for Spain's prime minister


AFTER two of his worst weeks since coming to power in March 2004, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, looks suddenly vulnerable. On May 27th his Socialists fell behind the opposition People's Party (PP) in local elections, notably in Madrid, where anti-Zapatero feeling runs high. Then on June 6th ETA, the Basque separatist movement, called off its 14-month ceasefire (already fractured when it killed two victims in a bombing at Madrid airport in December).

A general election is due in March; and, until now, the idea that Mr Zapatero might not win a second term was absurd. Since its defeat in 2004, the PP has seemed intent on self-destruction. Its apocalyptic rhetoric over everything from gay marriage to Catalan autonomy scared many centrist voters. But the PP has recently calmed down. In place of conspiracy theories linking ETA to the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, it now says it will trust the courts to decide. Talk of Spain being torn apart by devolution has subsided as judges consider whether the new Catalan autonomy charter breaches the constitution.

THATS ALL FOR TODAY

[devil]

Epsilon

All your posts are totally irrelevant to the Cyprus situation. They mainly apply to secession efforts by minority groups and involve constitutional issues. As Cyprus does not have a viable constitution and has not had since the Republic was founded in 1960, these problems cannot apply here. A more positive attitude and a totally new constitution with safeguards against secessionism are the key to success. It can be done.

[EPSILON]

Epsilon

All your posts are totally irrelevant to the Cyprus situation. They mainly apply to secession efforts by minority groups and involve constitutional issues. As Cyprus does not have a viable constitution and has not had since the Republic was founded in 1960, these problems cannot apply here. A more positive attitude and a totally new constitution with safeguards against secessionism are the key to success. It can be done.

All my posts is not related to today's situation in Cyprus but is fully related to Cyprus tomorrow's situation , after a unification.

Pls allow me to have some worries whether the new constitution you are proposing will be better than the one in Great Britain , or Belgium, and on top, here we speak about Turks and Greeks, not Scotish and Enlgish, speaking same language, almoast same religion and culture.

[devil]

Be very careful. You are on very thin ice if you think the Scots and the English have the same culture and religion.

1. the majority religion in Scotland is Presbyterian with a strong Catholic second; in England it is Anglicism with non-conformist as second (or, maybe, now, Muslim!)

2. the majority ethnicity in Scotland is Celtic: in England, it is Anglo-Saxon/Norman

If you had read through my earlier posts, you will know I had already addressed the problems of language and culture by taking the best parts of other peaceful polyethnic countries as an example. It is not so long ago that it was not a major problem in this country. I remember Cypriots (NOT Turks and Greeks) of both major cultures working together, going to the same coffee shop, playing backgammon together and so on. Why cannot this happen again, if both lots are given a fair deal (not the case in 1960)? Of course it can! In fact, it HAS to; the island is too small for anything else. I don't say it will be easy, but that is my firm conviction.

[Piratis]

If you had read through my earlier posts, you will know I had already addressed the problems of language and culture by taking the best parts of other peaceful polyethnic countries as an example. It is not so long ago that it was not a major problem in this country. I remember Cypriots (NOT Turks and Greeks) of both major cultures working together, going to the same coffee shop, playing backgammon together and so on. Why cannot this happen again, if both lots are given a fair deal (not the case in 1960)? Of course it can! In fact, it HAS to; the island is too small for anything else. I don't say it will be easy, but that is my firm conviction.

Devil, in principle I agree with you, but you are missing the most important factor: Foreign interests in Cyprus.

If Cyprus was left alone, then maybe no problems would be created among the different communities, but even if some occurred we would have solved them in the same way they have been solved in the so many other multi-ethnic countries around the world. In fact the conflicts we had between Cypriots are close to nothing compared to the conflicts and civil wars other countries had.

However as I said above the problem in Cyprus are those foreigners that want to control our island. They simply use the TC minority, by promising to them huge gains on the expense of the rest of Cypriots, in order to maintain a conflicting situation that would prevent Cypriots from being united and use their island for their own interests.