Cyprus-Forum.com

[Dr J]

‘It not as if don’t we have enough statues of Ataturk and flags’
By Simon Bahceli

PEOPLE in the north are demanding a halt to the building of giant Turkish star and crescent and statue of Turkey’s founding father Kemal Ataturk less than one kilometre from the Ayios Demetrios-Kermia crossing in western Nicosia. They say it is both provocative to Greek Cypriots and poses a major traffic hazard.

“It’s normal to put up monuments, but it’s not as if don’t we have enough statues of Ataturk and flags,” Turkish Cypriot Nicosia municipal official Semavi Asik told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.

The erection of the monument has also meant that a peace monument designed by a Greek artist has had to be moved to another location.

Asik said he and a number of officials had opposed the Civil Defence Organisation’s (SST) request to place the monument in the middle of a major traffic junction just a few hundred metres from the crossing on the grounds that it was an unsuitable location. The SST had already erected two giant flags, one Turkish and one of the breakaway state, outside its building which abuts the traffic junction.

Asik said he also opposed the way the SST’s application had been approved by the municipality “without having first secured permission from the Chamber of Architects and Engineers and the Town Planning departments”.

For the military and its subordinate groups such as the SST to override normal procedure in the north is not unusual, according to retired pro-peace politician and former north Nicosia mayor Mustafa Akinci.

“It happened just a year or two ago when the army bulldozed an ancient burial site in Karpas to put up two giant flags. The sad thing is that while some oppose such things, they still happen.”

Head of the Turkish Cypriot Teacher’s Union (KTOS) Sener Elcil told the Cyprus Mail he also opposed the building of the monument for both political and safety reasons.

“It is being built to provoke Greek Cypriots coming to the north from the south,” Elcil said yesterday, adding: “The military is behind this. This is how things are here, and how they always have been”.

He said however that his main concern was for the safety of children attending a school adjacent to the traffic junction housing the monument.

“The monument will block the view of oncoming traffic,” he said, adding a call to the head of the Society for the Prevention of Traffic Accidents to speak out against its construction. Society head Dr Mehmet Avci refused however to comment, saying he had yet to see the plans.

For his part, North Nicosia Mayor Cemal Bulutoglulari rejected all claims that normal procedure had not been followed in allowing the construction of the Ataturk memorial and flag.

“We received a request from the Civil Defence Organisation asking if we could move the peace monument and put up a statue of Ataturk. We looked at the area and decided that it posed no problems from a traffic point of view. We also though it was appropriate to move the peace monument closer to the crossing,” he told the Mail yesterday.

Bulutoglulari added that it had never been necessary for the official bodies connected to the ‘state’ to apply for planning permission to put up monuments.

“My predecessor put up monuments all over the place and he didn’t apply for permission from Town Planning to do so,” he claimed.

However, Bulutoglulari said he and a ‘traffic committee’ would be looking into the matter and making a final decision on the suitability of the project today.

The SST was yesterday unavailable for comment.

Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.ph ... 0&cat_id=1

[Tim Drayton]

This is the current state of progress on the controversial Ataturk statue:

[Dr J]

They make me laugh - and they have the nerve to say GREEKS have an issue with fascism and flags.

Any Turkish Cypriot who is trying to tell us that the north is run by them and not the Turkish army is either a mug or a prolific liar.

[paliometoxo]

i know right everything about the north invaded screams turkey nothing about the north is cypriot

[Oracle]

Maybe some friendly Brit collector will "rescue" them for the British Museum ....

[YFred]

Maybe some friendly Brit collector will "rescue" them for the British Museum ....

No, Brits don't need any more stones, they've got the elgin ones, what would they need any more for?

[Oracle]

Maybe some friendly Brit collector will "rescue" them for the British Museum ....

No, Brits don't need any more stones, they've got the elgin ones, what would they need any more for?

There may be some vacant wall space to fill soon ...

[shahmaran]

I would be more worried about the increasing number of minarets than anything else

[YFred]

Maybe some friendly Brit collector will "rescue" them for the British Museum ....

No, Brits don't need any more stones, they've got the elgin ones, what would they need any more for?

There may be some vacant wall space to fill soon ...

Come on dearest spill the beans, are the famous stones going back any time soon?

[Tim Drayton]

The Afrika newspaper’s comments on this issue:

http://www.afrikagazetesi.net/modules.p ... =0&thold=0

Knock it down immediately

Everyone is against it, but the military command is sticking to its guns! Is there nobody who can halt the construction of this monument which architects, engineers and town planners describe as a ‘death trap’? North Cyprus has turned into a land of flags, mosques and monuments. Rather than building roads that will prevent accidents and hospitals that will treat the sick, they on the one hand build mosques, and on the other erect monuments! With all experts commenting with respect to the monument that is being erected at the Kermiya (Ayios Dhometios) roundabout that it is a ‘menace to road safety’, the military authorities turn a deaf ear to the warnings and carry on with construction work! The Society for the Prevention of Road Accidents remains noticeably silent on the question of the monument which poses a particularly grave threat to our children who are attending the school in the area. The military authorities who turn a deaf ear to warnings are once again waving a red flag at civil society!

(My translation.)