Cyprus-Forum.com

[umit07]

Phoenix I am a TC.

You ask and I will enlighten!

The only thing I've done since last night is have a few good farts in bed.

I am NOT Talat and Kif. is NOT the Comarade. So all I can so is be general. The key to it all is that I am not dying for a agreement with the GC's if the terms are not acceptable to me, I say just let it be. That simple.

Life is simple Phoenix it's people who make it so complicated.

P.S : Are you building up an urge for meat?

[Oracle]

Phoenix I am a TC.

You ask and I will enlighten!

The only thing I've done since last night is have a few good farts in bed.

I am NOT Talat and Kif. is NOT the Comarade. So all I can so is be general. The key to it all is that I am not dying for a agreement with the GC's if the terms are not acceptable to me, I say just let it be. That simple.

Life is simple Phoenix it's people who make it so complicated.

P.S : Are you building up an urge for meat?

No ... I chew them up and then spit them out

Life is simple Phoenix it's people who make it so complicated.

I never could understand this saying

Life + People = Complicated

Life - People = Simple

People + Life = Alive

People - Life = Dead

....... finish it off for me

[umit07]

There you go again, if I said simple it ain't as simple as basic algebra. Phoenix I'm not as tiny as I used to be, my grandma fed me well .

So you like to chew than spit, you should learn to swallow the protein is good for you.

[Tim Drayton]

I agree with Umit that Turkey is a country that is rapidly going places. Let me quote from a speech made by IMF official Anne O. Kruger on May 5 2005:

http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2005/050505.htm

"Even the greatest optimist could not have anticipated the extent to which the reforms implemented in the past few years have succeeded. Economic policymaking has been transformed—and so has Turkey's economy. And the benefits have been swift to materialize. Average real GNP growth over the past three years has been close to 8%—it was just short of 10% last year. The inflation rate which was 70% just three years ago is now down close to 8%: its lowest level in 35 years. The primary surplus-an essential part of the strategy to reduce the public debt burden-was almost 7% last year, ahead of the government's 6.5% target. The ratio of public debt to GNP has fallen by 30 percentage points of GNP since its 2001 peak: but further reductions will be necessary to strengthen the resilience of the economy and reduce vulnerability to shifts in the world economic conditions."

I was working in the Gulf a few years ago, where one of my colleagues was a London-born Greek Cypriot. I remember once describing to him the vast wave of industrialisation that is currently sweeping across Turkey (a country that I k now very well) such that products ranging from white goods to cars and lorries are now being churned out in vast quantities. Nearly 90% of Turkish exports are now manufactured goods. I will never forget the look of astonishment on this British Greek Cypriot's face, which turned to total incredulity when I, by way of example, explained that Volkswagen in Germany now subcontracts the manufacture of pistons for certain of its cars to a Turkish company, and they are very satisifed with the quality of this product. Of course, my British Greek Cypriot colleague had been brought up to think of Turks as simple, illiterate peasants tending their goats in the hills and who are incapable of doing anything else. It's a bit like one contributer here who regularly asks: "Can Turks read?". (Incidentally, I have worked as a teacher in Turkey, and sorry to shatter your illusions, but yes Turks can read!). You are welcome to the paranoid hatred and simple-minded steroetyping with regard to Turks that seems to be part and parcel of the Hellenic socialisation process. However, there lurks an objective reality just over the sea from Cyprus. This objective reality is a Turkey which has entered a phase of rapid growth. It is country that now boasts dozens of universities which are pouring out a new generation of professionals. And yes, they can read - many of them in three or four languages! One of the reasons that so many multinational companies are chosing to locate production facilities in Turkey is precisley because of the ready availability of top-notch engineers. You can wallow in your self-perpetuating sterotypical myth which assigns to the Turks the role given to the Slavs by the German Nazis of untermenschen if you wish - for some time longer, but sooner or later objective reality is going to fly in your faces.

It is perfectly clear to me that if there is to be a lasting settlement to the Cyprus problem, this will lead to a normalisation of relations not just between Greek and Turkish Cypriots but also between Cyprus and Turkey. It is equally clear to me, based on geographical and economic realities, that Turkey will then become Cyprus's main trading partner. The main beneficiary of this will be Cyprus itself.

[umit07]

Tim I would like to thank you on your post, it is much better when an "outsider" ( If I may say ) looks upon the subject with no affiliation to either side. I am studying at an Turkish uni. that opened up a campus in the North the aim being to create competition among other TC owned universities for them to excel. The school ( METU)has many lecturers from the main campus in Ankara. Many of the lecturers have completed thier postgraduate education in America and have worked with multi-national companies. At the moment TC lecturers are few but they are a couple poping up each year. This year one lecturer came from the UK which was working at Toshiba , another came from the US who was working at Intel. As new opportunities in the North open, many highly qualified TC's are coming home to work in their homelands..

[Nikitas]

TIm,

You are being hasty in your assessment of Greek public reaction to Turkey.

The undeniable fact which influences the average Greek person's pereception is the DAILY violation of Greek air space by Turkish jets. After a few years you become immune to it, but now and again it jolts you to realise that a neighboring nation, which is supposed to be your ally, sent yet again, several military planes to overfly Greek territory for no reason other than to intimidate. I am sure that the pilots and their commanders are very well educated multilingual people who listen to opera and drink French wine. But they are still behaving like enemies, with no valid reason or cause, and are doing it daily.

As for Turkey's industrial might, I have been hearing about it for years. Back in 1976 I interviewed the Itnernational Harvester guys who had offices in Athens. They said, back then, that they preferred to invest in Turkey rather than Saudi because of the firmer industrial growth there. So it is not a new process.

I also recall Demirel when he was prime minister, saying that most of the growth Turkey makes annually is cancelled out by its population growth.

From personal experience in products I know intimately what I see of Turkish work is rather poor reverse engineering and concnetration on the volume end of the market rather than quality. In one case the reverse engineering has infrigned several Italian patents and the Italians involved tried to enforce their intellectual property rights in Turkey but to no avail. EU protetcion does not extend that far.

There may be some original design and engineering work but I have yet to see it. What I do see is that non Turks are using Turkish low cost labor, lack of environmental regulation and low social security cost to move some of their manufacturing there. They are doing to Turkey today what they did to Greece in the 60s and 70s.

To put it in more concrete terms, a Greek furniture manufacturer I know moved his business to Turkey. The reason is simple, the cost of the social insurance for one Greek worker for one week is equal to the TOTAL cost of a Turkish worker for one month. But the Greek added value is still greater once the furniture gets here in Greece. This sounds like a colonial use of the Turks. I do not see many of the "investors" moving their design offices or financial control centers to Turkey. These stay in the "home" nation.

I do not know which Greeks have given you the perception that the average Greek looks on the Turks as barbarians. In the recent past Greeks were brutally treated by the Italians and the Germans. That experience cost Greece one tenth of its population and most of its infrastructure. Yet today Germans and Italians are perceived as friends. That the same has not happened with Turks cannot be the fault of Greeks alone.

[Tim Drayton]

TIm,

You are being hasty in your assessment of Greek public reaction to Turkey.

The undeniable fact which influences the average Greek person's pereception is the DAILY violation of Greek air space by Turkish jets. After a few years you become immune to it, but now and again it jolts you to realise that a neighboring nation, which is supposed to be your ally, sent yet again, several military planes to overfly Greek territory for no reason other than to intimidate. I am sure that the pilots and their commanders are very well educated multilingual people who listen to opera and drink French wine. But they are still behaving like enemies, with no valid reason or cause, and are doing it daily.

As for Turkey's industrial might, I have been hearing about it for years. Back in 1976 I interviewed the Itnernational Harvester guys who had offices in Athens. They said, back then, that they preferred to invest in Turkey rather than Saudi because of the firmer industrial growth there. So it is not a new process.

I also recall Demirel when he was prime minister, saying that most of the growth Turkey makes annually is cancelled out by its population growth.

From personal experience in products I know intimately what I see of Turkish work is rather poor reverse engineering and concnetration on the volume end of the market rather than quality. In one case the reverse engineering has infrigned several Italian patents and the Italians involved tried to enforce their intellectual property rights in Turkey but to no avail. EU protetcion does not extend that far.

There may be some original design and engineering work but I have yet to see it. What I do see is that non Turks are using Turkish low cost labor, lack of environmental regulation and low social security cost to move some of their manufacturing there. They are doing to Turkey today what they did to Greece in the 60s and 70s.

To put it in more concrete terms, a Greek furniture manufacturer I know moved his business to Turkey. The reason is simple, the cost of the social insurance for one Greek worker for one week is equal to the TOTAL cost of a Turkish worker for one month. But the Greek added value is still greater once the furniture gets here in Greece. This sounds like a colonial use of the Turks. I do not see many of the "investors" moving their design offices or financial control centers to Turkey. These stay in the "home" nation.

I do not know which Greeks have given you the perception that the average Greek looks on the Turks as barbarians. In the recent past Greeks were brutally treated by the Italians and the Germans. That experience cost Greece one tenth of its population and most of its infrastructure. Yet today Germans and Italians are perceived as friends. That the same has not happened with Turks cannot be the fault of Greeks alone.

I take many of your points. Cheap labour has a lot to do with it - but then a lot of countries also have much cheaper labour and less onerous social insurance burdens than Turkey, so it is not the only factor. Yes, this is part of a very long-term trend. Take the automotive sector. It started with two joint ventures in the sixties, one involving French Renault and the other Italian Fiat with local partners to produce cars in Bursa. Over the years other multinationals followed, such as Chrysler, Ford, Mercedes and then Asian giants like Toyota, Honda and Hyundai, and Turkey is now a major centre of the automotive industry.

Greece is not a country that I know well, but I hear that the perception of Turkey there is changing. It seems that Greek Cypriots are lagging behind. You ask "I do not know which Greeks have given you the perception that the average Greek looks on the Turks as barbarians" - well, I could quite easily go back over various threads in this forum and cut and paste various quotes which would provide plenty of evidence. Don't numerous posts by a certain person suggesting that Turks are somehow congenitally incapable of learning to read tell you anything? Years ago, I was proudly told by somebody from Greece that foreign films shown on Turkish television are always dubbed, while in Greece they are always shown with subtitles, and this was because, "Greeks can read and Turks can't" so this stereotype seems to have wide application.

Like it or not, Turkey is Cyprus's large neighbour, and like them or not, the Turks are Cyprus's most immediate neighbours. I think it is in Greek Cypriot's interests to wake up and take stock of what is actually going on there. I note with interest your hypothesis that Turkey ultimately wishes to control the whole of Cyprus, and if this is true, I think the realisation should dawn that the day will come when the nascent regional giant of Turkey exercises enough clout to be able to do so. All the more reason to go for a settlement now that protects the interests of all Cypriots, including Turkish Cypriots, who may soon cease to exist as a group with a unique cultural identity if Turkey contines with its policy of settling mainlanders on the island.

[Nikitas]

Tim,

"Nascent regional giant" is a possibility, perhaps a probablity. The question is whether this giant will be benign or malignant. Sending jets to overfly your neighbors' territory for no other reason than to prove that you can is not exactly conducive to building a proper relationship.

The relationship of USA and Canada comes to mind. No doubt the USA looms large in that situation, but at no time do you hear of formations of US F16s overflying Quebec just to piss off the French Canadians. If we area tlaking about this type of mutual respect, then by all means let us go for it. But so far we do not see that kind of desire demostrated by Turkey towards any of its neighbors.

As to the future trading partnership based on and made inevitable by proximity. I do not buy it. Japan is the hell away from Europe, and it still manages to dominate the market with its products. Which proves that proximity is not the major factor in building a trading relationship. In any case, Cyprus produces pretty much the same agricutlural stuff as Turkey as for industrial goods, they will have to face competition from other sources to establish themselves with their price/quality mix.

If by looming large you mean bullying, then yes, that will probably happen until there is a new tough guy on the block with contrary interests. This is assuming that military technology remains stable and population size and numbers of military toys are still relevant. However, there are developments in the pipleline which point to a different situation and which might soon cancel out the advantages of jets and ships.

[observer]

Nikitas

The relationship of USA and Canada comes to mind. No doubt the USA looms large in that situation, but at no time do you hear of formations of US F16s overflying Quebec just to piss off the French Canadians. If we area tlaking about this type of mutual respect, then by all means let us go for it. But so far we do not see that kind of desire demostrated by Turkey towards any of its neighbors.

In fairness, Turkish planes are not overflying Athens, as your words might lead the unknowing to think. There is disagreement between Turkey and Greece over the airspace Greece claims around its coast. As far as I am aware, Turkey stays within what it says is its airspace (or international airspace), which is over the sea.

The situation is not one that can be compared with US/Canada, where the border issued has been settled long ago. In fact there is even an agreement for each country to send its troops across the others borders in the case of a civil emergency. Pissing off the French Canadians probably doesn't count as an emergency, however much many English speaking Canadians and Americans may want to do it.

[Nikitas]

Observer,

I am fully aware of the 10 mile versus the 6 mile difference. That is NOT what I was referring to. There are daily incursions into the 6 mile limit, which is beyond any dispute, and very frequent overflights over Greek islands, including large inhabited islands like Chios and Samos.

We know the game, which is not very complimentary for the people ordering and organizing these violations. The islands are so small that a jet flies over them in seconds. Too little time to organize interception. Hardly an act of bravery, but definitely a hostile act and one which speaks volumes of the mindset in Ankara and the way they perceive good neighborly relations.

There are also frequent harassments of fishermen but there the situation is not one lasting seconds, and the Greek navy has the time and the means to respond and the behavior is different.

Contrast this with the behavior of nations in the western side of Greece. There too Greece claims 10 mile air space but Italy is not flying its jets daily over Corfu. Different culture and customs over there I guess!