Viewpoint wrote:Kifeas wrote:James Ker-Lindsay wrote:Following the island’s division it became clear that any future settlement would be based in some measure on the physical separation of the two communities within the general framework of a more recognisable federal system of government. This framework was first confirmed in 1977 and then reconfirmed in 1979 with the signing of the High Level Agreements. While the agreements created the parameters for a settlement based on a bicommunal, bizonal federation, in practice the actual meaning of such a system was hotly contested by the two sides. For the Greek Cypriots, the nominal aim was to create a system of two entities that would be predominantly, but not wholly, made up of one community or another. However, this vision, backed with calls for a full right to movement and settlement, was seen by the Turkish Cypriots as unacceptable. Instead they wished to secure a settlement whereby the central state would be weak and the federation would be made up of two separate and ethnically homogenous entities and with guarantees in place to prevent the Greek Cypriots from overrunning the Turkish Cypriot state. Meanwhile, in 1983, UN efforts to create the conditions for the two parties to reach a settlement suffered a setback when the Turkish Cypriots unilaterally declared independence and formed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a state recognised only by Turkey.
http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/esc/esc-lectur ... indsay.pdf (page 28)
The above paragraph summarizes the essence of the illegitimate claims of the Turkish side, and demonstrates the major reason why there has not been a settlement of the Cyprus problem so far! It has nothing to do with Makarios, Kyprianou, Vasiliou, Clerides, Papadopoullos or Christofias! The Turkish Cypriot side wants to push us to sign over to them (read gift to them) the exclusive ownership of an area of Cyprus encompassing as much as 30% of the islands territory and over 50% of its most expensive land (the coastline,) even though it is a minority of only 18% of Cypriots, and even though historically (and I am talking about thousands of years of history here) the area which they claim has never been populated by themselves exclusively, not even by majority! This is the summary of the despicable diachronic Turkish and TC leadership's opportunistic and irredentist demands over the Greek Cypriot community!
How does it correlate with the GC desire to gift our country to Greece? which caused this mess in the first place?
Our desire to liberate Cyprus from foreign oppressors came only in 1821, along with the desires of all Greek people in all other Greek islands and territories which were under the brutal Turkish rule:
During the Greek War of Independence in 1821, the Ottoman authorities feared that Greek Cypriots would rebel again. Archbishop Kyprianos, a powerful leader who worked to improve the education of Greek Cypriot children, was accused of plotting against the government. Kyprianos, his bishops, and hundreds of priests and important laymen were arrested and summarily hanged or decapitated on July 9, 1821.
1821 was far from the "first place" and far from what caused the mess. What came in the first place and what caused the mess that we Cypriots continue to suffer from was this:
In the summer of 1570, the Turks struck again, but this time with a full-scale invasion rather than a raid. About 60,000 troops, including cavalry and artillery, under the command of Lala Mustafa Pasha landed unopposed near Limassol on July 2, 1570, and laid siege to Nicosia. In an orgy of victory on the day that the city fell--September 9, 1570--20,000 Nicosians were put to death, and every church, public building, and palace was looted.
Now I hope you learned what came first and you will stop making uneducated remarks about Cyprus and its people, since you apparently know very little about us and the history of our island.
Feel free to start a thread describing when and what I’ve stolen, and I 
