Cyprus-Forum.com

[Chrisswirl]

The following are quotes from the article http://www.mndaily.com/daily/gopher-archives/1991/10/31/Cyprus_occupation_continues.txt.

I have included titles to make it more readable, but I'd like to stress that these are not my views. Although it offers one side of the coin, it's quite a thought provoking article (although not all of the article is printed). I'm most interested to see if Turkish Cypriots agree with any of this, and I'd prefer not to have this thread full of nationalism. I am pro unification of Cyprus and pro communities living together, this post is not meant to be against the Turkish Cypriots, more against the division that exists between all Cypriots and its causes (of which I understand not all are Turkish).

Ataturk on Cyprus
In 1939, soon after the Turkish annexation of the predominantly Syrian city of Hatay, Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, stated, ``the turn of Cyprus has not yet come.''

Taksim Proposals
In 1956 the Turkish Cypriot leader F. Kutchuck submitted on a map taxim proposals dividing Cyprus into north and south. In 1974 Turkish soldiers divided the island physically into north and south, deviating only slightly from the 1956 map.

Denktash on Cyprus
Turkish Cypriot leader Denktash stated, ``Even if the Turkish Cypriots did not exist, Turkey would not have left Cyprus to Greece ...''

Dividing Communities
Turkey claims that the Muslim Cypriots existed independent of their Christian counterparts. This could not be farther from the truth. In Cyprus today one can clearly find signs of peaceful co-existence and close cooperation; Greek and Turkish Cypriots prior to the 1974 invasion were dispersed all over the island, living in most cases in the same towns. Mosques and churches are found side by side, and members of one community worked in the businesses of the other. Stories of intercommunal compassion and assistance are abundant. In fact one of the author's grandfathers once found himself with a broken leg 10 miles away from his home, and a Turkish Cypriot helped him on a donkey and on foot brought him home at 3 o'clock in the morning!

The Reichstag Fire of Cyprus?
Denktash brags about a friend of his planting a bomb in the Turkish consulate in 1958. The bombing was then blamed on Greek Cypriots, resulting in clashes between the two communities.

Deaths that should never happen
Problems between the two communities appeared in the late 1950s and like many Cypriots we are sorry that innocent Turkish Cypriots did suffer in certain cases; in no way were these cases systematic or directed by the Cyprus government. Rather they were acts of isolated extremists which were condemned by the majority of the Greek Cypriots.

Extremists Promoting Taksim (Greek Cypriot Extremists also promoted Enosis)
In 1963 the Turkish Cypriot terrorist organization Turk Mudafa Teskilat murdered Mustafa Hikmet and Ahmet M. Gurkan, publishers of the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Cumhuriyet, for supporting intercommunal ooperation.

Promoting Division
Here is how the U.N. Secretary-General U Thant commented on their refusal to take these offers: ``The lack of movement of Turkish Cypriots outside their areas is (also) believed to be dictated by political purpose, namely to reinforce the claim that the two main communities of Cyprus cannot live peacefully together in the island without some sort of geographic separation.''

Napalm and threat
Turkey continued to escalate the crisis. Twice (1964 and 1967) its airplanes bombarded the tiny republic with napalm. In 1964 it took a strong ultimatum from President Lyndon Johnson to avert a threatened Turkish invasion. For 14 years the people of Cyprus lived under the shadow of invasion from a neighbor a hundred times as big.

Dictatorship Siezes Power
In 1974 the junta of Greece directed a coup against the government of Cyprus. The pro-democracy Greek Cypriots (97 percent of the population) got arms and resisted the mutineers for five consecutive days.

Invasion of Cyprus
Nevertheless, only five days after the coup, Turkey launched an invasion to ``restore the constitutional order.'' The speed of the invasion proves that Turkey was planning to invade the island and that the coup just provided the pretext.

Minorities in Cyprus
Most importantly, Cyprus has shown that it knows how to treat its minorities respectfully and fairly; the Armenian, the Maronite and the Latin Cypriots, who candidly chose to live with the Greek Cypriot community, are doing very well economically and are proud to be Cypriots.

Disaster in Anatolian Turkey
In contrast Turkey's record is not as enviable. In 1915 the Turkish government committed the gruesome genocide of one and a half million Armenians. Additionally over a period of 70 years it has all but exterminated the Greek population of Istanbul. It is currently oppressing its Kurdish minority, which until recently was forbidden to speak its native language.

Turkey for Turks, Kurdistan for Kurds?
If Turkey thinks that partition is the only way to solve minority problems, why not grant independence to the Kurdish Turks, who after all are about the same percentage of Turks as Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus?

[Main_Source]

not posts?....calm before the storm maybe?

[metecyp]

I was going to respond but I didn't know where to start from...then I decided not to waste my time with such one-sided article.

[Saint Jimmy]

'Calm before the storm' man? This is outrageously ridiculous, so much so, that metecyp's response says it all. This account isn't capable of even raising serious objections.

So these two guys were graduate students in 1991. Which means that they are products of the Kyprianou-Vassiliou education systems. So much for Clerides reviving nationalism, idolising EOKA and silently pardoning EOKA B' - seems to me, he just chipped away the rough edges; at least, solid foundations were laid by his predecessors.

I really hope our Modern History of Cyprus course has got better over the years.

Reunification and co-operation really don't stand a chance in hell, do they?

[magikthrill]

Turkey for Turks, Kurdistan for Kurds?
If Turkey thinks that partition is the only way to solve minority problems, why not grant independence to the Kurdish Turks, who after all are about the same percentage of Turks as Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus?

We all wonder the same thing but Kurds dont have a military power behind them to achieve this.

[garbitsch]

Turkey does not support division. They are after unification. I guess we already talked about it.

Magik, what would you say if minorities of Greece divide the country and establish their own states??

[achilles]

The article is definitely one-sided but i see nothing untrue there. Comparing to the Turkish one-sided (not to use the 'p' word) articles that have flooded the internet, the above is just brilliant.

[metecyp]

We all wonder the same thing but Kurds dont have a military power behind them to achieve this.

Ok, let's encourage Turks (opps, sorry, I meant Muslim Greeks) in Greece to have their own country too. Turkish Republic of Thrace in the heart of Greece would be nice, wouldn't it?

[achilles]

We all wonder the same thing but Kurds dont have a military power behind them to achieve this.

Ok, let's encourage Turks (opps, sorry, I meant Muslim Greeks) in Greece to have their own country too. Turkish Republic of Thrace in the heart of Greece would be nice, wouldn't it?

It seems like you are comparing apples with oranges.Its one thing to assimilate a few thousand Muslim Greeks of Turkish origin within Greece, without any further implications, and its quite another to allow million of Kurds to exercise their fundamental right to sovereignty and self-determination.

Cheers.

[metecyp]

It seems like you are comparing apples with oranges.Its one thing to assimilate a few thousand Muslim Greeks of Turkish origin within Greece, without any further implications, and its quite another to allow to million of Kurds to exercise their fundamental right to sovereignty and self-determination.

Why is it apples and oranges? Because Turks in Thrace are much less than Kurds in Turkey? Isn't West Thrace mainly Turkish? If they're the majority in Western Thrace and if you support the idea of self-determination for any ethnic group that is majority in an area, then why can not Turks in Greece have their own country?