Cyprus-Forum.com

[Tim Drayton]

The International Crisis Group has just issued a report entitled:

Turkey and Europe: The Decisive Year Ahead


http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5796&l=1

It contains the following recommendation:

7. Take a greater, even-handed interest in Cyprus settlement talks; send senior officials to visit both community leaders in their offices on the island; underline willingness to give financial support for a solution; and consider delaying oil exploration in contested territorial waters while talks are under way.

[Tim Drayton]

By the way recommendation number 7 above is directed towards the EU and Governments of EU Member States, not Turkey.

[Kifeas]

The International Crisis Group has just issued a report entitled:

Turkey and Europe: The Decisive Year Ahead


http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5796&l=1

It contains the following recommendation:

7. Take a greater, even-handed interest in Cyprus settlement talks; send senior officials to visit both community leaders in their offices on the island; underline willingness to give financial support for a solution; and consider delaying oil exploration in contested territorial waters while talks are under way.

My impression and understanding of this so-called “International Crisis Group” is that it is an organization (“think tank”) tailored to serve and promote the deepest and most conservative (read Imperialist) Anglo-American interests. Turkey is a key factor in serving those interests, and therefore the “group” sees a need to promote her image outside and sell her case to the international community, along with serving its broader said mission. Its analyses, whenever it comes to Cyprus, are rather shallow and superficial and at best disingenuous and manipulative.

Take for example the claim in paragraph three (3) of the executive summary (ES) of its recent report on Turkey, in which is makes the grossly insincere and wrongful assumption that the reason Turkey’s reform program went off course in 2005 concurrently with the launch of EU membership negotiations was due to “bitterness that the Republic of Cyprus was allowed to enter in 2004, even though it was Turkish Cypriots, with Ankara’s support, who voted for the reunification deal (the Annan Plan) backed by the UN, the U.S. and the EU itself, while the Greek Cypriots voted it down.” Now of course, this is 100 megaton nonsense, because Cyprus’s EU accession materialized a whole and foul year before the rejection of the Annan plan, in April 2003, and during the last phase of the “negotiations” on the basis of the plan and when the last version was put at the referendums (April 2004,) it was already (accession) an irreversible fact. Therefore, acceptance of the plan in the referendums was not and could never have been a condition of any form or kind, for Cyprus to become an EU member.

The “test” for the GCs, so that Cyprus would have become an EU member state under the RoC umbrella, without a solution, had already been passed in the Copenhagen EU summit under Danish presidency, in December 2002, when the TC and the Turkish side had failed to accept Kofi Annan’s invitation to start negotiations on the basis of his plan’s earlier version. That was the critical time for Cyprus’s EU accession -with or without a solution, and the GC side passed the “test,” while the TC /Turkish side had failed it when Denktash refused to appear to his appointment with K. Annan in Copenhagen, and instead he sent that extremist so-called FM, Taxim Erdoglanoglou, in his place, only to tell K. Annan that he was given no authority by Denktash to either negotiate, agree or sign anything. Now, all these were and are facts well known to the TC /Turkish side, both when the Annan plan was placed on the referendums but also when Turkey was receiving is accession date in October 2004, and therefore, for anyone, be it Turkey, the TCs or this so-called “ICG,” to claim that Turkey felt bitter that the GCs were given accession to the EU even though they rejected the plan, is a completely disingenuous bullshit.

Now, why are they (ICG) play this game, which apparently is not the first time they do? They do so for two (2) reasons. The first is due to a desire to “defame” the GC side once more, for allegedly cheating the EU and for being responsible for Turkey’s and the TC’s misfortune, as if it Cyprus that occupies (illegally) Turkey’s territory and does not recognize it, and not the other way around. The second reason is to victimize and manipulate the EU and its members, for being their responsibility that Turkey’s accession process is not progressing smoothly because the country is not motivated enough. This is also evident by reading in the last paragraph of the ES, another victimizing remark towards the EU, by saying that “EU member states should seize the chance to fix past mistakes over Cyprus …” Nonsense, yes pure nonsense!

Further down, in paragraph six (6) of the ES, one reads the following equally manipulative claim that “It (Turkey) is also supporting promising new talks on the reunification of Cyprus, where a settlement could provide a critical breakthrough for its relationship with the EU over the next year. Such initiatives helped win Turkey a two-year seat on the UN Security Council from January 2009.” Turkey’s non-permanent seat in the UN SC has absolutely nothing to do with its (good or bad) role in the efforts for a Cyprus settlement, and only reason “ICG” includes such a claim among the reasons that potentially contributed to her UN SC membership is because there is a desire to manipulate the EU public opinion and its member states in believing what they “fail to see,” that indeed Turkey plays a constructive role in the efforts for a settlement in Cyprus. It is like telling them in a disguised way that “look, because Turkey did all these, which most of you fail to see in her, including her “constructive” role in Cyprus, others (the UN member states) saw them already and rewarded her by offering her a seat in the SC.

Let’s now take a look at this “group’s” so called recommendations to Turkey. In the second (2nd) recommendation, it says to Turkey to “sustain full support for the current round of talks on a Cyprus settlement ….” Instead of telling Turkey to engage itself in an urgent and a thorough “soul searching” as to why it aims only at a solution that will reduce an EU member state’s sovereignty and wish to maintain the island under its suzerainty, and to try to change such an attitude, for a solution to be found; it disguisedly tries to sell the idea around that it should be taken for granted, as a fact, that Turkey indeed maintains full support for the current round of talks on a Cyprus settlement, and it only needs to sustain it.

In a nutshell, if find this “group” only to be a satellite of conservative Anglo-American and pro-Turkish interests, whose only purpose in this report (and other past reports) is to promote Turkey’s accession in the best and easiest possible way, without the need for Turkey to have to sacrifice anything or much! Who is behind in subsidizing it, is more than obvious.

[Kikapu]

Kifeas,

Anyone with an objective understanding of the above report, can only agree with your assessment of that report from the ICG. As you have pointed out, this was not the first time the ICG has done this, and I'm certain, it will not be the last.!

[Piratis]

In addition to what Kifeas said, I want to add that the co-founder of ICG Morton Abramowitz has been an ambassador to Turkey and he even wrote a book promoting a pro-Turkish American policy.

[Viewpoint]

Kifeas,

Anyone with an objective understanding of the above report, can only agree with your assessment of that report from the ICG. As you have pointed out, this was not the first time the ICG has done this, and I'm certain, it will not be the last.!

Licking GC arse again Kikapu, tut tut....

[Kikapu]

Kifeas,

Anyone with an objective understanding of the above report, can only agree with your assessment of that report from the ICG. As you have pointed out, this was not the first time the ICG has done this, and I'm certain, it will not be the last.!

Licking GC arse again Kikapu, tut tut....

Don't blame me for having an objective mind, VP.

But now that you have once again showed us that you cannot be an objective reader or perhaps you are unable to understand what was written by the ICG in an objective way, please tell us what points that Kifeas made, that are not accurate, if you can be honest with yourself just once.!

[Viewpoint]

Kifeas,

Anyone with an objective understanding of the above report, can only agree with your assessment of that report from the ICG. As you have pointed out, this was not the first time the ICG has done this, and I'm certain, it will not be the last.!

Licking GC arse again Kikapu, tut tut....

Don't blame me for having an objective mind, VP.

But now that you have once again showed us that you cannot be an objective reader or perhaps you are unable to understand what was written by the ICG in an objective way, please tell us what points that Kifeas made, that are not accurate, if you can be honest with yourself just once.!

Licking GC arse is licking arse however you wish to try and worm out of it.

Since when do I have to do anything you say?

[Kikapu]

Kifeas,

Anyone with an objective understanding of the above report, can only agree with your assessment of that report from the ICG. As you have pointed out, this was not the first time the ICG has done this, and I'm certain, it will not be the last.!

Licking GC arse again Kikapu, tut tut....

Don't blame me for having an objective mind, VP.

But now that you have once again showed us that you cannot be an objective reader or perhaps you are unable to understand what was written by the ICG in an objective way, please tell us what points that Kifeas made, that are not accurate, if you can be honest with yourself just once.!

Licking GC arse is licking arse however you wish to try and worm out of it.

Since when do I have to do anything you say?

Thank you for proving my point one more time VP that either you do not have the ability to be an objective reader or that you just don't understand what it is that you read. The article was written by ICG and not by a GC. I had already read, understood and reached my conclusions long before the article was commented by Kifeas. Now that you have repeated your slogan for the day, just answer my question to you, if you can. If you cannot, just say so. No one will imply, that you will go against your propaganda oath and tell the truth for a change, god forbid.!