What if? Sometimes I look back and think had been no Makarios and enosis (union with Greece), this island would have been much better. Had the killings not started in 1963 and we had just struggled through the courts, Cyprus would not have this bloodbath between us and there would not have been this separation. We could have been an example to the world that Christians and Muslims can work together in harmony and it could have been a bridge of friendship between Turkey and Greece.
His saying that “There is nothing Cypriot except for Cyprus donkey” It wasn’t me. It was Makarios. He said this to a beautiful Italian lady journalist. I think he was overwhelmed. I told this story to the youth who under the opposition flag of those days were saying: ‘We are Cypriots’, and immediately the opposition took it and started making propaganda that Denktash insulted Turkish Cypriots by calling them donkeys. This is the story. Everybody has pinned it on me. Many things have been pinned on me. It doesn’t matter.
Greek Cypriot politicians I can’t blame Greek Cypriot politicians for having the national cause and working for it but I blame them for not being realists. Cyprus is 70 kilometres away from Turkey and it is for Turkey a strategic island, as it is for everybody else. To think that Turkey would allow Cyprus to become part of Greece was a stupid way of looking at things.
Clerides He has guts. Once he said to De Soto: ‘I went for a full check-up and doctors were all very pleased with me. They said: ‘Perfect, everything is perfect 100 per cent and so on. And I said: ‘Look, you examined me only from my waste up’. He he he.
Religion I believe in God. I believe in the Koran. I read the Koran several times a year. I am not fanatical. I am a Turkish Cypriot who believes in his religion and God.
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