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[boomerang]

MEDIA BYPASS
Vol. 8, #11, November 2000
pp. 28-31

Torturing Cypriot History
Hostile Environment of Yesteryear Still Remembered

by Matthew J. Stowell

As an American with no Cypriot or Greek ancestry, I understand how Cyprus' complex and, to most Americans, obscure past can make many easy prey to the disinformation fed our press by the Turkish government.

A common propaganda bite used by the Turkish state to legitimize its 1974 invasion of Cyprus is that "The Greek Cypriots then unleashed a campaign of extermination and eviction that killed or wounded thousands and drove a frightening percentage of Turkish Cypriots into besieged enclaves.." (Insight Magazine, "Fences Might Be the Right Thing for Multiethnic Nation of Cyprus", Ahmet Erdengiz, Feb. 7).


This claim has been refuted by findings of impartial sources such as the UN Secretary General's report No. S/5950, para. 142 which confirms that as a result of the brief but turbulent period of hostilities between Greek and Turkish-Cypriot extremists from December 21, 1963 to June 8, 1964, a total of 43 Greek Cypriots and 232 Turkish Cypriots are missing and presumed dead. Clearly, this was no "campaign of extermination".

Moreover, these deaths were a direct result of Britain's documented policy of arming Turkish separatists and encouraging Greco-Turkish conflict to facilitate its control over Cyprus.

While extremists of both communities are to blame for intercommunal violence, fueled by British attempts to prevent this overwhelmingly Greek island-nation from achieving its self-determination, history is clear that Turkish extremists initiated the cycle of violence that claimed victims on both sides.

In June of 1958, a bomb explosion outside the information office of the Turkish Consulate-- later shown to have been planted by Turkish extremists (the "TMT")--set off the first intercommunal clashes on Cyprus. As noted by British author Christopher Hitchens in his highly acclaimed work on Cyprus, Hostage to History, the self-proclaimed president of Cyprus' occupation regime, Rauf Denktash, admitted in a 1984 interview that it was a Turkish Cypriot friend who planted the bomb. As a result, "Turkish Cypriots promptly burned out a neighboring district of Greek shops and homes, in what was to be the first Greek-Turkish physical confrontation on the island. A curfew was imposed, and Greek guerrillas [were] blamed [by British authorities] for the bomb as they were for everything else."

Next the British released from jail eight Greek Cypriot EOKA fighters, forcing them to walk through the Turkish village of Guenyeli, where they were quickly set upon and murdered. Thus began two months of violence by extremists on both sides, killing 56 Greeks and 53 Turks. Tellingly, the British arrested 2,000 Greeks, but only 60 Turks.

In addition to the hostile environment that was created by combatants on both sides, there was a second factor that led to the polarization of both communities: with a view toward partition, the Turks withdrew from predominantly Greek areas and evicted Greeks from areas where Turks were in the majority. In a single week over 600 families, two-thirds of them Greek, left their homes, and many Turks who left Greek areas did so under intense pressure from Turkish separatists.

Turkish Cypriots who favored compromise or a close relationship between the two ethnic communities were targets of TMT violence. Turks caught smoking Greek cigarettes or visiting Greek shops were beaten, and Turkish gangs forced some Turkish Cypriots to resign from Greek Cypriot trade unions. In Limassol, a Turkish Cypriot owner of a restaurant popular with Greeks was threatened and later murdered by the TMT. Two progressive-thinking, London-educated Turkish barristers who spoke against partition were killed outright by these same Turkish gangs.

Turkish extremists forced several thousand Turkish peasants to abandon their farms and animals and move into an overcrowded Turkish enclave in Nicosia. "Thus the aim of partition, camouflaged by Turkish propaganda as 'federation,' was relentlessly pursued regardless of loss of human life and the human misery created. However, this so-called 'first phase' of the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey only partly succeeded, since well over half of its brethren refused to obey instructions to abandon their homes for the predetermined enclaves" (The Making of Modern Cyprus, Panteli). On December 23, 1963, Turkish gangs also moved through the Armenian quarter of Nicosia and forced the inhabitants at gunpoint to leave their houses, shops, church, school and clubs to make room for more Turks.

This forced population transfer continues in occupied Cyprus today. Since 1974, Turkey has relocated over 125,000 mainland Turks to northern Cyprus. In this clearly illegal, Soviet-style effort to alter the demographics of northern Cyprus, one which the UN has condemned, Turkey has displaced not only the few remaining Greek Cypriots but also Turkish Cypriots, who are often treated as second-class citizens and denied the rights and privileges of the alien settlers from Turkey.

As a result, a diminishing number of Cyprus' indigenous Turks remain. Turkey has made it easy for them to obtain visas to emigrate, and they have left en masse, mostly for Britain and Turkey as well as other Mideast countries; some have even escaped through the Green Line and returned to the Greek south.

Apologists for Turkey's invasion disingenuously omit the imperative fact that it is the Greek Cypriot community that bore the overwhelming brunt of violence on Cyprus. As a result of Turkey's 1974 invasion, fittingly codenamed "Operation Attila", Turkish troops perpetrated more than 6,000 killings, widespread rape, torture, the systematic obliteration of cultural property including the destruction of churches, and the ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Greek Cypriots--making them refugees in their own country and bringing twenty-six years of heartbreak for the families of more than 1,500 missing persons.

Placing Turkey's invasion of neighboring Cyprus in a contemporary context, four times as many Greek Cypriots were killed by Turkish troops as Albanians were killed in Kosovo prior to NATO's intervention--and in one-sixth the time frame. Yet Serbia was bombed back to the Stone Age, while Turkey's occupation of Cyprus continues to enjoy tacit US support.

In numerous applications to the European Human Rights Commission, Turkey was found guilty of widespread violations of human rights in Cyprus. Although the European Court of Human Rights has ordered the Turkish government to compensate Greek Cypriot Titina Loizidou for the loss of her property seized during its invasion, Turkey remains the only member of the 40-nation Council of Europe to refuse compliance with a compensation order from its human rights court -- a breach that could lead to Turkey's expulsion from the Council.

The 1963 constitution forced on the Cypriots by the British in a take-it-or-leave-it standoff--with the alternative being partition--was known as "the most rigid, inflexible, and probably the most complicated in the world" (S.A. DeSmith, The New Commonwealth and Its Constituents). The president, a Greek Cypriot, and the vice president, a Turkish Cypriot, could each veto legislation. Despite comprising only 18% of the population, Turkish Cypriots were granted three of the ten seats in the Council of Ministers and thirty percent of the deputy positions in the House of Representatives. A Turkish Cypriot was to be made minister of defense, foreign affairs and finance. Turkish Cypriots were allotted 30% of the civil service jobs and 40% of the command positions in the Army. Any change to the constitution required a two-thirds majority of representatives from both communities. Even the most rudimentary of governmental functions became impracticable--for example the Turkish Cypriot leadership's voting against income and other taxes had placed the government in danger of bankruptcy. In short, the government was hog-tied; Cyprus' very undoing was written into its own constitution.

Other assertions by the Turkish government, that "President Makarios craved union with Greece and the subjugation of Turkish Cypriots . and proposed amendments to the constitution to achieve these objectives" (Insight Magazine, Feb. 7), are patently false. By the time this ill-conceived marriage of a government and its unworkable constitution was imposed on Cyprus, Makarios was opposed to union with Greece. He sought complete independence for Cyprus and a unified sovereign state that protected the rights of all Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish.

It was precisely because Makarios opposed union with Greece that Greek extremists shelled the presidential palace and twice attempted to assassinate him. The amendments he proposed to the constitution were designed to make the government (which has been described by legal experts as "the first in the world to be denied majority rule by its own constitution") somewhat workable and to reflect a closer approximation of the true ratio of Greeks to Turks in Cyprus. Makarios submitted these proposals to the Vice President, a Turkish Cypriot, who did not respond. Instead, the Turkish government, reflecting its dominant role in separatist efforts, answered for him: Turkey rejected the proposals out of hand and forbade the Turkish Cypriots from even discussing them. Shortly thereafter, the Turkish Cypriots abandoned the government completely.

Turkey's 1974 assault on Cyprus is commonly referred to by many in the media as a "landing", a "dispatch of troops" or as anything other than what it was: a brutal invasion. Turkey also misleadingly argues that the invasion was authorized by the Treaty of Guarantee. The Treaty of Guarantee provided that one of the guarantor powers (England, Greece or Turkey) could intervene in an emergency but only in order to restore the country to its original (unified) state, and certainly not to partition, ethnically cleanse or occupy it. And under the U.S.-Turkey Agreement of July 1947, American consent was required for the use of military force by Turkey because virtually all of Turkey's military equipment, weapons, tanks and fighter jets, was supplied by the U.S. This consent was never given. On the very day of the invasion, July 20, 1974, the United Nations Security Council condemned Turkey for its aggression, demanding that Turkey withdraw all troops and allow the displaced Greek Cypriots to return to their confiscated homes.

There have been at least three further UN resolutions since 1974 demanding the same, but Turkey has ignored them all. This is why the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," the TRNC, is not recognized by any country in the world except for Turkey and has no legitimate international standing.

The continuing insistence on partition by Turkey, using the protection of the Turkish-Cypriot community as a pretext, is merely part of Turkey's long-held expansionist plans for the island. According to Professor John L. Scherer, in Blocking the Sun: The Cyprus Conflict, "Since the 1950s, [Turkey's] plan had been to turn northern Cyprus into a Turkish-run province. Ankara needed an excuse to intervene, and that was provided by George Grivas and EOKA fighters. If there had been no EOKA, however, the Turks and Turkish Cypriots would have found another pretext. They would have planted their own bombs in Turkish-Cypriot areas and blamed the Greek Cypriots in order to justify the Turkish invasion."

Attempts are also made to minimize the 80% Greek majority's cultural and historical claim to the island through assertions like: "Turkish and Greek Cypriots occupied the island for centuries under a succession of sovereigns before the Republic of Cyprus was established in 1960" (Insight Magazine, Feb. 7).

Because of its geo-strategic position in the Mediterranean and the bounty of its natural resources, Cyprus has been invaded and intermittently ruled over by many: Phoenicians, Assyrians, Persians, Romans, English, Lusignans, Genoese, Marmelukes, Venetians, Ottomans, and again the English. The Ottomans invaded in 1571 and controlled Cyprus for three hundred years (its longest period of cultural stagnation), but through all of its decidedly civilized history it has remained a Greek nation in language, architecture, art, music, culture and spirit.

As noted by Christopher Hitchens in Hostage to History, "the complexity and variety of Cypriot history cannot efface, any more than could its numerous owners and rulers, one striking fact. The island has been, since the Bronze Age, unmistakably Greek." Out of 7,000 years of history, the Turks have been in Cyprus a mere 300 years. Based on this and an 18% minority, Turkey's military establishment, with a seemingly truncated memory, believes that Cyprus should be part of Turkey.

Most troubling for the future of Cyprus is the apartheid-like creed, parroted by some journalists covering the issue, that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots will never be able to live in harmony (although they did so for three hundred years), therefore let's maintain the Attila Line that has been imposed on both communities by the Turkish military and forget about finding a solution. It is no accident that this is identical to the argument used by Turkish extremists in the 1950s to promote the idea of partition-one separate state for Turkish Cypriots, another for Greeks.

It is this very separatist objective-engineered by Turkey's ruling military establishment to achieve its goal of taksim, or the partition of Cyprus (and further exacerbated by Britain, America and the Greek junta's disastrous intrigues in Cyprus)-that initiated the cycle of violence by extremists of both communities in 1963 after centuries of peaceful coexistence.

While Turkey has refused to allow Greek Cypriot refugees to return to their homes in the occupied north, the Cypriot Government has kept Turkish-Cypriot homes in trust for them in the hope that they will one day return when Cyprus is united.

Situated in the UN-controlled buffer-zone, Pyla serves as an example of what can be achieved when the divisive effect of Turkey's occupation regime is removed. It is one of the few villages on the island where Greek and Turkish Cypriots still live together peacefully as they had done for centuries.

A recent mobilization by Turkish Cypriots to find a blood donor for a 6-year-old Greek Cypriot boy with leukemia further underscores the speciousness of the myth, propagated for the very purpose of keeping Cyprus divided, that both communities are somehow inherently incapable of living together.

Another disinformation bite promoted by the Turkish government and its spindoctors here is that the Turkish-occupied part of the island functions as a democracy.

As confirmed by the State Department's most recent Human Rights Report and by independent human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Turkey is among the worst human rights violators on earth, where torture and extra-judicial killings remain a part of its political landscape. For the fifth consecutive year the Turkish state has led the world in imprisoned journalists ahead of China and Syria, and has recently admitted to using death squads to kill as many as 14,000 people since the 1980's.

As the TRNC is in reality a puppet administration that answers directly to the Turkish state, the same authoritarian repression that afflicts Turkey also pervades occupied Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots critical of Denktash's occupation regime have asked that their identities be kept confidential, as one economics professor did, for example, when interviewed by the BBC ("the fact that she didn't want to be identified was significant", BBC News, 9/1/98).

The assassination of prominent Turkish Cypriot journalist Kutlu Adali in 1996 is instructive--his assassination is widely attributed to extremists working on behalf of the Turkish state. According to Professor Claire Palley, a British constitutional law expert, Adali was murdered six days after the European Human Rights Commission declared Cyprus' application against Turkey admissible and "after it became obvious he would have been a witness" in the case. Adali's writings had been extensively quoted in the application, and Palley stated that Adali "proved Turkey's colonisation of Cyprus . . . [and its] compelling Turkish Cypriots to emigrate"

Anyone who wants to believe that the TRNC is a democracy will soon be disappointed upon visiting occupied Cyprus, and taking note of the square-helmeted, goose-stepping soldiers wielding machine guns on every corner. Cross the Green Line in Nicosia into the Turkish sector and try to photograph any building or videotape any street scene and you will soon find yourself camera-less, in jail, or both.

That apologists of the occupation regime are under the misperception that this is how a democracy should function is indeed part of the problem. And, much like the situation with the former Berlin Wall, now there are Turkish Cypriots from the north escaping to the south to return to their old neighborhoods among the Greeks; their homes, as guaranteed by Cypriot law, still waiting for them.

As was recently reported by Gregory Copley of The International Strategic Studies Association in Washington DC, "[t]he Turkish Cypriots' standard of living has declined compared with that of their Greek Cypriot neighbors since 1974. Turkish Cypriots, with 37 percent of the land and the best agricultural and tourist areas of the island, earn only 30 percent of the average wage of the Greek Cypriots."

European Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek protested that the Turkish Cypriot community was being "victimized" and withheld from "a better and more prosperous future" as a result of Turkey's insistence on an occupied and divided Cyprus.

An increasing number of Turkish Cypriots have realized that the future of a prosperous Cyprus is a united one without Turkish troops. Rejecting the hard-line partitionist stand of the occupation regime, in October 1999 an influential bloc of 23 Turkish-Cypriot trade unions and professional organizations appealed directly to visiting U.S. envoy Alfred Moses to work for the reunification of war-divided Cyprus on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions that call for a unified Cyprus and a withdrawal of occupation troops.

The TRNC's occupation regime has trapped Turkish Cypriots in a political and economic black hole, all the while importing Turks from the depths of Anatolia to wrest control from Cyprus' native Turkish population. As a result, as many as half of all Turkish-Cypriots have fled their own homeland in search of greater economic and political freedom elsewhere.

In conclusion, it should be emphasized that there were extremists on both sides of the Cyprus conflict, while power-brokering by colonial-minded Britain and interventionist violence by junta-era Greece clearly added fuel to the Cypriot powder keg. But insiders know that it was Turkish designs for partition that ultimately caused the breakdown in government and the terrible tragedy of 1974, the repercussions of which all indigenous Cypriots, both Greek and Turk, are still suffering today.

Cyprus is Berlin all over again, with one difference. Rather than taking the side of civilian-controlled governments, pluralistic societies, and democratic values, our own government has instead decided to ratify invasion, occupation, and transnational aggression in order to sustain an alliance of increasingly questionable value._______

About the author: Matthew J. Stowell is an Associate with the American Hellenic Media Project (AHMP), a non-profit think-tank created to address bias in the media and encourage independent, ethical and responsible journalism. Commentaries, letters and opinion/editorials by AHMP have been published in The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Detroit News, The Economist, The Financial Times, Forbes Global, The Miami Herald, The New York Post, The New York Times, The Toronto Sun, USA Today, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and World Press Review.

A shorter version of this article was published in the form of a letter to the editor of Insight Magazine.

[Kikapu]

@Tim,

You just about covered my understanding as to when and how Turkey's appetite for territorial ambitions grew and how to get it. The way to get it, there had to be an unworkable system of government, hence the 1960 constitution which gave Greece, Turkey and Britain protectoral powers over the island. The 2004 Annan Plan was the next unworkable system that would have caused more problems as it was designed to do. Turkey & Britain would have been the main benefactors of such an unworkable plan. When the problems started in 1963, Greece were part of the problems, Britain stayed out of the problems while Turkey had plans to come and cause more problems by wanting to come and divide the island so that she can take part of the island for her herself. She had the power to stop the problems even without the help of the British, but instead wanted to partition the island if the USA gave them the go ahead, which they did not. Next chance came in 1974 and Turkey did then what she would have done in 1964. Since 1964 did not work out for Turkey, it is then not too surprising Inönü telling Denktash and Küçük to return back to the government, which they flat out refused. So the suffering of the TCs in the enclaves began it's journey for the next 11 years, because Denktash was after Taksim and Turkey went along with it in the hopes that it will produce results in the future for her to take part of Cyprus.

@Bir,

When you put the core reason as to why the problems in 1963 and beyond started were only because of the dream of Enosis starting even before the British gave the island back to it's people, it does not make it so, as being the only culprit 100%. Blaming Enosis as the sole reason why Turkey was forced to come and take territory against her best wishes despite Enosis not being the NATIONAL CAUSE for the GCs after 1968 is hard to believe that Turkey did not have interests in expanding her territories, because what you are saying is, once the Enosis dream was created, from then on anything Turkey did was justifiable no matter if the Enosis dream did end in 1968. You are saying Enosis dream can be the blame and was the "core cause" no matter if the GCs no longer supported it, specially in 1974 since it was the Junta from Greece that initiated the coup and not the regular GCs, but only the GC fanatics. By doing so, are you then not opening the doors for Piratis to come and say to us once again, god forbid, that had the Ottomans not come to Cyprus back in 1571, there would not have been a need for Enosis, therefore "Turkey" can be blamed for everything as being the "core" reason for the Cyprus problems starting back in 1571. So lets be careful not to start and end everything with Enosis as being the core reason for everything going wrong in Cyprus, specially when the National Cause was no longer Enosis after 1968, in 1974 or in 2010. Taksim on the other hand has never stopped being, even if it was a reactionary movement to Enosis back then. What is the excuse for Taksim being after 1968, 1974 and in 2010.? Here is a simple equation Bir.

Turkey's territorial ambitions = Taksim

Taksim = Turkey's territorial ambitions

you cannot not have one without the other, is the reason why Taksim has never seized to exists from 1950's to present..

[BirKibrisli]

Birkibrisli, I fully accept that the Taksim/Partition project was initially dreamed up by the British as a weapon with which to counter the Enosis campaign. I also accept that it was initially hard for the British to sell this idea both to the Turkish Cypriot community, whose leading lights were at the time simply calling for the continuation of British colonial rule, and also to Turkey, which was wary of departing from the Kemalist 'national border' (misak-ı milli) policy.

However, for the sake of argument, can I put a different spin on your thesis? Perhaps the notion of Taksim was originally dreamed up by outside forces for purely instrumental means, but perhaps also, like Frankenstein's monster, it then developed a life of its own. There is evidence that the British thought that once the Turkish side started rattling its sabre with talk of partition, the Greek side would come to its senses and abandon talk of union with Greece. However the means went on to become an end in itself as it was embraced, perhaps for slightly different reasons, by both the Turkish Cypriot community and by Turkey.

Is it not possible that up until the 1950's Turkey harboured no territorial ambitions whatsoever towards Cyprus, but after the Taksim project was mooted and was taken up with great enthusiasm by the Turkish deep state, Turkey's appetite became whetted as it now saw that it had been presented with an ideal opportunity to pursue territorial expansionism?

Sure,Tim...All that you say is very possible and logical...My objection is this: You cannot reduce the CORE of the Cyprus Problem to Turkey's supposed territorial ambitions...I am absolutely sure that Turkey had no such thoughts till the mid 50s...Why,in 1963 they were not even capable of carrying out an overseas landing mission,as a few people have already suggested here...I am sure you know of Ismet Inonu,who was one of Ataturk's closest confidants...This was the same man who signed away Cyprus in 1923,and also the same man who was Turkish Prime Minister for most of the 60s,importantly during the 63/64 crisis...This man knew what war was like and he would never have embarked upon it without great deliberations...One the British and the Americans got into the picture things obviously changed,and then the events just took on a life of their own as you suggested...But to forget about Enosis and the deaths of all those innocent people,and the wrestling of power from the TCs,and the deliberate isolation of the TCs in the enclaves and their treatment by their own government as second class citizens during 63-74,and the antics of EOKA B,and the coup d'etat against Makarios,and the naming of the criminal Sampson as President etc,and claiming that only Turkey's territorial ambitions is the core of CP is deluding yourself...It is like looking at a very sick person,lying in bed with smoking induced lung cancer and a few other related ailments and say ,"at the core of this person's illness lies the doctor's wallet-enrichment ambitions..."

[-mikkie2-]

"You cannot reduce the CORE of the Cyprus Problem to Turkey's supposed territorial ambitions"

Bir, the CORE of the Cyprus Problem NOW is Turkeys continued occupation of the northern part of Cyprus.

Enosis is DEAD. This notion left us many years ago and you need to understrand this. Taksim however, is STILL alive and kicking. If Enosis is dead then so should Taksim. Solving the Cyprus problem now based on the past and notions which no longer exist will lead us to greater problems in the future.

Cyprus is now an EU member state, it is part of the modern world. It is Turkey and the TC's that are stuck in the past.

[BirKibrisli]

@Bir,

When you put the core reason as to why the problems in 1963 and beyond started were only because of the dream of Enosis starting even before the British gave the island back to it's people, it does not make it so, as being the only culprit 100%. Blaming Enosis as the sole reason why Turkey was forced to come and take territory against her best wishes despite Enosis not being the NATIONAL CAUSE for the GCs after 1968 is hard to believe that Turkey did not have interests in expanding her territories, because what you are saying is, once the Enosis dream was created, from then on anything Turkey did was justifiable no matter if the Enosis dream did end in 1968. You are saying Enosis dream can be the blame and was the "core cause" no matter if the GCs no longer supported it, specially in 1974 since it was the Junta from Greece that initiated the coup and not the regular GCs, but only the GC fanatics. By doing so, are you then not opening the doors for Piratis to come and say to us once again, god forbid, that had the Ottomans not come to Cyprus back in 1571, there would not have been a need for Enosis, therefore "Turkey" can be blamed for everything as being the "core" reason for the Cyprus problems starting back in 1571. So lets be careful not to start and end everything with Enosis as being the core reason for everything going wrong in Cyprus, specially when the National Cause was no longer Enosis after 1968, in 1974 or in 2010. Taksim on the other hand has never stopped being, even if it was a reactionary movement to Enosis back then. What is the excuse for Taksim being after 1968, 1974 and in 2010.? Here is a simple equation Bir.

Turkey's territorial ambitions = Taksim

Taksim = Turkey's territorial ambitions

you cannot not have one without the other, is the reason why Taksim has never seized to exists from 1950's to present..

Kikapu,
I can only repeat myself...You are making a big mistake if you think Enosis was like a candle or a tap that any one person could blow out or turn off with one single action,at one single point in time...Even if that person was Makarios...Sure he had stopped publicly advocating it,but that does not mean the average GC in 1968 had stopped dreaming of it..The coming to power of the fascist Junta in Greece would have put a damper on things,but the GCs and certainly Makarios never gave up his Enosis related dream of dominating and ruling the TCs politically,socially and culturally....What do you think EOKA B was all about...?A democratic movement to advance the human rights of all Cypriots???From the moment Makarios stopped talking about Enosis EOKA B kicked into life,and their struggle for Enosis took on another journey which culminated in the coup against Makarios...and you seem to have forgotten about Papadopoulos...This man who was one of the leaders of the Eoka movement,and who together with Makarios and Yorgadjis hatched the Akritas plan to sideline,dominate and rule the lives of the TCs was President of Cyprus only a few short years ago...does that suggest to you that the average GC had given up on the EOKA and the dream of Enosis...? No,Kikapu,the dream of Enosis lived on in peoples hearts and found a practical expression in 1963 when they wrestled power from the TCs...And notice how they have refused to give it back ever since...Do you really believe that the sole reason there hasn't been an agreed solution to date was Denktas? I have another simple formula for you...

GC nationalist ambition to rule over the TCs = Taksim

Taksim = GC nationalist ambition to rule over the TCs

This equation is also in operation as we speak...so I can easily say "at the CORE of Cyprus Problem lies the GC nationalist ambition to dominate and rule the TCs....

ps Piratis is right of course...Had 1571 never happened there wouldn't be a Cyprus problem today..Or at least we wouldn't be involved in it...I sincerely wish that was the case...But it isnt...We have been in Cyprus since 1571 (Much earlier than the British came to Australia in 1788!) and we are still here...The TCs are double victims....We are the victims of the Ottoman expansion and we are the victims of GC nationalism/Hellenism ideology...spare a thought for us while elevating Turkey's territorial ambitions to the CORE of Cyprob,hence making sure we will never find a solution, as you let the GC nationalists off the hook very lightly indeed...

[BirKibrisli]

"You cannot reduce the CORE of the Cyprus Problem to Turkey's supposed territorial ambitions"

Bir, the CORE of the Cyprus Problem NOW is Turkeys continued occupation of the northern part of Cyprus.

Enosis is DEAD. This notion left us many years ago and you need to understrand this. Taksim however, is STILL alive and kicking. If Enosis is dead then so should Taksim. Solving the Cyprus problem now based on the past and notions which no longer exist will lead us to greater problems in the future.

Cyprus is now an EU member state, it is part of the modern world. It is Turkey and the TC's that are stuck in the past.

Mikkie...Let us not kid each other...Turkey's occupation of North Cyprus is the result of the Cyprus problem NOT the cause of it...Please don't put the cart before the horse...Enosis is not dead...The spirit of Enosis lives on in most GC nationalists...That is the desire to dominate and rule the lives of the TCs,something which began in 1963,continued unchallenged till 74,and still continues today in the minds of the likes of Piratis who dream of two GC controlled states in the short term leading up to One larger GC controlled state in the long term...Tell me a single trust and confidence inducing action taken by the RoC in the past 36 years to convince the TCs that the bad old days are over???The isolation and the embargoes continue unabated, even a bleeding English football team cannot play an unoffical game in the trnc,and you expect the TCs to trust you while you are squeezing their throats trying to choke them,Mikkie???

I can see both sides of the story ,Mikkie...I have never stopped doing so..
But the unfairness of putting all the blame on the biggest victims of this Conflict is what got to me...And I know we cannot find lasting peace if we do not face up to our mistakes of the past...Old wounds must be healed first before we can go forward...Putting our heads in the sand and wishing it all away will not do it...Trust and understanding do not grow on hope trees...They must be cultivated...All I see and hear here are insults,prejudice,and total denial of any wrong doing,from both sides...I spent years talking about the wrongs of the TCs,past and present...Now it is time to talk about the other side of the story...

[-mikkie2-]

"GC nationalist ambition to rule over the TCs = Taksim

Taksim = GC nationalist ambition to rule over the TCs

This equation is also in operation as we speak...so I can easily say "at the CORE of Cyprus Problem lies the GC nationalist ambition to dominate and rule the TCs.... "

Sorry Bir, but this does not wash. You are changing the goalposts here, because now you are saying that the aim of the GC's has moved away from Enosis and you now say that our 'national cause' is to dominate the TC's! To me this smacks of creating another excuse to for the continued justification of Taksim.

What you are effectively saying is that the GC's will have to accept a 'United' Cyprus on Turkey's terms for the time being. Yeah, right! Some compromise solution that will lead to. The art of compromise requires two to tango, not one to demand and the other to yield.

[paliometoxo]

NICOSIA - Turkish Cypriot hardliner Dervis Eroglu said on Wednesday he planned to run in 'presidential' elections in occupied Cyprus, in a vote pivotal to the reunification process on the ethnically-split island.

The winner of the April 18 vote will have responsibility for negotiating a peace deal with rival Greek Cypriots. Failure to do a deal could hurt Turkey's bid to join the European Union and complicate cooperation between the EU and NATO.

Eroglu, who is 'prime minister' of the enclave recognised only by Turkey, said he would continue peace talks with President Demetris Christofias if elected.

Most opinion polls put him ahead of Mehmet Ali Talat, the leftist incumbent leader. Eroglu advocates a two-state settlement to the division of Cyprus, a prospect rejected by Greek Cypriots.

"The day I'm elected I will meet with Mr Christofias and negotiations will continue," Eroglu told reporters.

Christofias and Talat have been locked in reunification talks since September 2008. Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 after a short-lived Greek inspired coup and the conflict has defied a small army of mediators.

Present negotiations have so far been inconclusive.

[Kikapu]

@Bir,

When you put the core reason as to why the problems in 1963 and beyond started were only because of the dream of Enosis starting even before the British gave the island back to it's people, it does not make it so, as being the only culprit 100%. Blaming Enosis as the sole reason why Turkey was forced to come and take territory against her best wishes despite Enosis not being the NATIONAL CAUSE for the GCs after 1968 is hard to believe that Turkey did not have interests in expanding her territories, because what you are saying is, once the Enosis dream was created, from then on anything Turkey did was justifiable no matter if the Enosis dream did end in 1968. You are saying Enosis dream can be the blame and was the "core cause" no matter if the GCs no longer supported it, specially in 1974 since it was the Junta from Greece that initiated the coup and not the regular GCs, but only the GC fanatics. By doing so, are you then not opening the doors for Piratis to come and say to us once again, god forbid, that had the Ottomans not come to Cyprus back in 1571, there would not have been a need for Enosis, therefore "Turkey" can be blamed for everything as being the "core" reason for the Cyprus problems starting back in 1571. So lets be careful not to start and end everything with Enosis as being the core reason for everything going wrong in Cyprus, specially when the National Cause was no longer Enosis after 1968, in 1974 or in 2010. Taksim on the other hand has never stopped being, even if it was a reactionary movement to Enosis back then. What is the excuse for Taksim being after 1968, 1974 and in 2010.? Here is a simple equation Bir.

Turkey's territorial ambitions = Taksim

Taksim = Turkey's territorial ambitions

you cannot not have one without the other, is the reason why Taksim has never seized to exists from 1950's to present..

Kikapu,
I can only repeat myself...You are making a big mistake if you think Enosis was like a candle or a tap that any one person could blow out or turn off with one single action,at one single point in time...Even if that person was Makarios...Sure he had stopped publicly advocating it,but that does not mean the average GC in 1968 had stopped dreaming of it..The coming to power of the fascist Junta in Greece would have put a damper on things,but the GCs and certainly Makarios never gave up his Enosis related dream of dominating and ruling the TCs politically,socially and culturally....What do you think EOKA B was all about...?A democratic movement to advance the human rights of all Cypriots???From the moment Makarios stopped talking about Enosis EOKA B kicked into life,and their struggle for Enosis took on another journey which culminated in the coup against Makarios...and you seem to have forgotten about Papadopoulos...This man who was one of the leaders of the Eoka movement,and who together with Makarios and Yorgadjis hatched the Akritas plan to sideline,dominate and rule the lives of the TCs was President of Cyprus only a few short years ago...does that suggest to you that the average GC had given up on the EOKA and the dream of Enosis...? No,Kikapu,the dream of Enosis lived on in peoples hearts and found a practical expression in 1963 when they wrestled power from the TCs...And notice how they have refused to give it back ever since...Do you really believe that the sole reason there hasn't been an agreed solution to date was Denktas? I have another simple formula for you...

GC nationalist ambition to rule over the TCs = Taksim

Taksim = GC nationalist ambition to rule over the TCs

This equation is also in operation as we speak...so I can easily say "at the CORE of Cyprus Problem lies the GC nationalist ambition to dominate and rule the TCs....

ps Piratis is right of course...Had 1571 never happened there wouldn't be a Cyprus problem today..Or at least we wouldn't be involved in it...I sincerely wish that was the case...But it isnt...We have been in Cyprus since 1571 (Much earlier than the British came to Australia in 1788!) and we are still here...The TCs are double victims....We are the victims of the Ottoman expansion and we are the victims of GC nationalism/Hellenism ideology...spare a thought for us while elevating Turkey's territorial ambitions to the CORE of Cyprob,hence making sure we will never find a solution, as you let the GC nationalists off the hook very lightly indeed...

First of all, I'm not excusing anyone Bir, when it comes to the Cyprus problem and I'm not saying the problems in Cyprus were because of Turkey's territorial ambitions was the core cause. Lets stay with your original question and not add to it. You started asking me a question as to whether the core cause of the Cyprus problems was Turkey's territorial ambitions. This is what I'm responding to, and giving what has happened in the past and what is happening today, it is impossible to come to any other conclusion but to say Taksim and Turkey's territorial ambitions are one and the same regardless of which came first, Enosis or Taksim, but what you are saying is, the moment the Enosis dream was hatched back when, Turkey had the right to take part of Cyprus, and in order for her to do that, Taksim had to be alive and well. You are putting all the blame on Enosis dream as a justification to Turkey's actions today. This is what I'm talking about. Of course there are going to be fanatics who support Enosis back in 1968 and even today today, but lets separate them from the majority of GCs who does not support Enosis any longer, even back in 1974. My god, there are neo Nazi groups still in Germany who hate the foreigners today and here's still the KKK headquarters in the state Expat lives in Arkansas, also today.

You cannot eradicate some peoples wishful thinking, but that does not make it the national cause to hate foreigners in Germany or have a National cause against blacks in the USA, or a National cause for Enosis in 1974 or today in 2010, in Cyprus. If Turkey had /has no intention of having any territorial ambitions in Cyprus, why is she holding onto the north today. That was never part of her responsibilities an a guarantor power, so you see Bir, it is very hard to defend the argument that Turkey never had territorial ambitions had it not been for the GCs Enosis dream. These are reasons why the GCs do not want Turkey in Cyprus or as a guarantor power in the future. Dividing the island was against the mission they had signed up for, along with Greece and Britain. Today Greece and Britain are willing to let go their guarantor powers, but Turkey is not willing to do the same. You can believe that Enosis was the core cause for Turkey's actions in Cyprus since 1960, but Enosis dream came and went, where as Taksim dream is alive and well, because the moment the Taksim dream is also dead, so will the occupation of the north by Turkey. I don't know how else to put it to you.

You mentioned EOKA, but lets separate EOKA-A from EOKA-B, because just by saying "EOKA", you are implying it is the same group. You are saying that "EOKA" was taking over from Makarios's dream for Enosis after 1968, but from all the reports written, it appears that no harm had come to the TCs from any GC groups after 1968, so there was a sense that Enosis was on it's way out. Of course the life for the TCs was not much better in the enclaves, but since Taksim was alive, why would their leaders or Turkey make life any better for the TCs by finding a solution for the problems back in 1968 and beyond until 1974. But if Taksim was alive, then so must have been Turkey's territorial ambitions. You cannot ignore this connection because they are one and the same. Had Taksim also died in 1968, then just perhaps a solution could have been found and the TCs could have been out of the enclaves soon afterwards. Of course this was not going to make up what happened to them since 1963, but they could have saves further 6 years of hardship.

Now, as for Piratis's comments on 2 states becoming 1 state is something I warned VP about when we were discussing my BBF plan. What Piratis was saying because I read that conversation between he and Bananiot, was, if there was a "normal" Federation on the present size of the divide north and south, the GCs will be a majority in both the states because everyone would have the right to return back to their land. That is absolutely true. These two majorities in each state will then be able to form a ONE state and become a unitary state. This is what I warned VP about, that the north needs to give back 50% of the north back to the GCs to become part of the south state, so that the north can maintain the overwhelming TC majority so that the two states cannot be able to vote to become a unitary state, unless of course, the TCs also took part in making that decision to become a unitary state and do away with the Federation. But the bottom line is, of course the GCs would like to have a unitary state over a 2 state Federal one, but this is the compromise that they have made including the rotating presidency. I have shown you all how this can work for the TCs in a True Federation which the GCs have not liken the idea short of our good friend, DT, but it appears that what the north wants is not a workable True Federation with EU Principles, but for the Taksim to continue with a Confederation, much like the Annan Plan, which would also keep Turkey's territorial ambitions alive and well.!

[-mikkie2-]

"Enosis is not dead...The spirit of Enosis lives on in most GC nationalists...That is the desire to dominate and rule the lives of the TCs,something which began in 1963,continued unchallenged till 74,and still continues today in the minds of the likes of Piratis who dream of two GC controlled states in the short term leading up to One larger GC controlled state in the long term.."

Bir,

Enosis IS dead and has been dead for many years with the vast majority of GC's. You talk as if the majority of GC's are nationalists and by implication that they still harbour Enosis wet dreams. This is very far from the truth.

The cart, Bir, has overtaken the horse! The Enosis horse went lame years ago and the TC's have ended up pushing the cart!

What is at issue here is the TC's use the ghost of Enosis to continue to maintain the Turkish occupation in Cyprus, to continue to serve the interests of Turkey on the island and to basically hold on to a disproportionate % of Cyprus in the vain hope that the GC's will just put their hands up and give in. It won't happen, just as much Turkey removing herself of her own volition from Cyprus won't happen. Stalemate!

So we have to come to a compromise. The GC's have compromised by accepting a federation. They are compromising by offering TC's effective participation in all areas of governance, they are compromising by accepting that some settlers will stay, they are compromising by effectively sharing their economic wealth (oh yes, Bir, they will be handing out money to you by nature of the federal government which will be obliged to share tax and VAT receipts with the northen part of Cyprus). These are not minor points but major ones. Instead we get the usual partitionist rubbish from Ankara, with two FIR's, veto powers to the vice president a la 1960 constitution etc.

Where are the Turkish compromises Bir? Where?