Cyprus-Forum.com

[Nikitas]

Shah, they have not told the Turks to get out, but they are not granting anything that Turkey wants either. So who is the prisoner of the situation?

Success in this game would be if Turkey can maintain what it wants without having to keep 4 divisions on the island. So far there is hardly any success to speak of. GCs personal rights have been repeatedly reaffirmed by international courts, Cyprus has acceded to the EU, and has reinforced its international standing, arguably to a higher degree than during Makarios days. The status of the north is always in doubt and under review.

Thirtyfive years in diplomacy is like 15 minutes to a persons life. For history it is not even the blink of an eye.

[Nikitas]

Shah,

Locally produced means very little in weaponry. The key is not the flying platform, but the systems that guide and control it. Those are almost always imported. With the exception of Israel and oddly enough Serbia, I do not know of any nations that have developed sophisticated guidance systems free from the usual sources Even Sweden's Saab jets are not free of foreign made gear.

In the case of the Israelis most of their cutting edge firms work in close collaboration with American firms anyway, another way for the Americans to ensure that they will not face superior technology in a conflict.

[boomerang]

a short true story regarding arms sales. Names are witheld for obvious reasons.

The crew of a ship discover that a certain elecrtonic part which is scheduled for replacement every 800 hours of service can be replaced by a common part from the open market. They show their invention to senior officers who agree and the part is replaced. The original cost 8000 USD, the replacement 4 USD.

Within days of replacing the part the manufacturer sends an inquiry, "why are you not replacing the part? it is due for replacement and we have not received your order yet".

The ministry of defence tells them that there is no need, since they can get the parts locally and cheaper.

The embassy of the manufacturing nations takes up the case and reminds the buying government that under the contract they cannot alter the specs of the vessel, and also under another clause that they are not free to substitute parts. So it was back to the original 8000 USD parts. That is how arms contracts work. And if they do that for an insignificant part you can imagine how they treat their complex avionics and fire control systems.

Personally I am convinced that if a foreign owned F16 goes against a US owned one, there is no contest. The pilot of the foreign owned place will find his systems switching off left right and center. Cannot prove it, but have strong indications.

It is possible Nikitas, but do you think that would be the case for the locally produced F-16's also?

what yu say is correct Nikitas...about the switching off of the main computer of the plane...

when it comes to spare parts, equivalent parts are out there...but when it comes to equivalent and I will use memry chips as an example, the specs might be the same but the performance is different...otherwise they will be suite for copyright infringemnet...all memory chips do the same job but they go about it differently...it's about timing...

I used too make VGA cards, chipsets from nvidia...but for us to use different memory chips the supporting circuitry had to be changed...as the timing of these memory chips was different...

so what they are saying is correct...

another example is the case where not long ago, similar chips were used on cisco routers obtain from china from the decomitioning centre...when you use secondhand chips the performance varies, coz everytime you solder/desolder the chip you lose silicon and the restistive/capacitance behaviour changes...so the chip is unstable...

but I have no problem with the US grounding every US made plane at will...the computers on board are well protected...of cource you can reverse engineer the chipset, but never the program that controls the electronics...

never go off spec...

[Kikapu]

"In fact, that was probably the only element you could pressure Turkey with."

I never thought for a minute that the EU process was a leverage factor allowing the RoC to pressure Turkey. On the other hand pressure can be applied in other ways, as the S300 affair proves. Except that the S300 are a bit of a mystery to this very day for other reasons.

A progressive, wealthy, RoC with a 72 mile frontier with the Turkish army, is pretty close to what Ecevit had described as a nightmare for Turkey- a Greek military presence in the Middle East, and that is enough pressure to solve the problem and it can be more effective than the threat of a veto in the EU.

If you put down lists of options for both sides to this problem, the Greek list is longer, odd as this might sound.

So you think the RoC can seriously pressurize Turkey with military threats? (not rhetorical)

I mean what is stopping Turkey from adding another 40K or more, on the island?

Shah,

In all seriousness, Turkey's 40K troops in the north are already trapped there with nowhere to go. They are actually "sitting ducks" militarily speaking and adding more troops to the island, will only increase their problem in the event that Turkey abandons her EU accession dreams and becomes hostile to a EU member state (RoC) and any military confrontation with the EU Block, their sea supply route will be cut off from the mainland with only couple of nuclear powered subs, "no fly zone" enforced between the north and the mainland, EU Block Troops on the ground in the south and the moment the shit hits the fan, it will become a "turkey shoot" (no pun intended) on the TA in the north and the whole thing will be over in matter of days. Militarily speaking, and I'm no military man, the TA in the north is in a very vulnerable location with no place to hide or retreat to if the going gets tough for them. They will only have two choices when their backs becomes the shores of northern Cyprus, to fight to the very end, or raise the white flag, in the event they had to face a real military force against them.

To this day, I cannot figure out as to why Turkey even needs to be in northern Cyprus for her strategic purpose. The mainland is only 40 miles away for god sake. We are not talking about Turkey wanting to hold onto, say Gibraltar, where they can have some influence who comes and goes through the Gibraltar Straights and a base far away from her shores, but northern Cyprus.???. Now, I would understand if they had all of Cyprus, but only part of it, serves no purpose to protect the mainland, because as Nikitas stated very clearly, if the north becomes annexed or that there is a formal partition, the RoC can then invite anyone a base in the RoC that may not be so friendly to Turkey and kick the British out. A foreign military power that might be a major threat to the mainland that's only 40 miles away, will be Turkey worse nightmares.

Turkey knows all this of course, and that's why there has not been an official partition taken place already or likely in the future, instead, the AP was going to give Turkey what it wanted, to have power over the whole island in the form of the so called "guarantor power". Well, that did not happen and any hold onto the north as I see it, is more of a liability than an advantage, militarily and economically speaking, other than perhaps have some bragging rights that they have a military victory under their belts over parts of the RoC, but such bragging rights over northern Cyprus can hardly be seen as a major military victory for a strong NATO member, considering the heavy loses that they incurred during the battle that can make any nation stand tall, but that only comes if the opponent was a formidable force. The RoC was not.!

Turkey has had an army sitting on a so called "EU" member for many years, how come no one has done anything about it so far?

Plus how are they "sitting ducks" if a few hundred thousand can be gathered in no time just 40 miles away?

They might have managed to hold back the invasion temporarily in the past causing a lot of damage, but that will be kind of hard this time if they already have 40K on the ground fully armed and ready.

I think you are overestimating the military pressure both the EU and the RoC can have over Turkey and seriously underestimating the military power of Turkey.

Who is going to do it, France? Germany? Italy? Greece? UK?

Let me remind you that all of these countries have had a go before, together (except Germany).

This was when turkey had no real military strength and we have left it back in the 1919's, I doubt anyone will go down that route ever again.

Unfortunately I find it hard to believe that any nation will take on Turkey for the RoC, if so where have they been for the past 35 years?

Maybe having an army on Cyprus is not all about directly protecting the mainland, clearly Cyprus is a sweet spot for many and it is why we are in this mess in the first place, or maybe you truly have to reconsider what you think you know regarding Turkey's motives or views on Cyprus.

Shah,

I think you will need to read what I wrote one more time.!

No one is suggesting that any military confrontation with Turkey over Cyprus will involve invading Turkey. I am talking about Cyprus only.

If Turkey were to turn hostile towards another EU member and the EU members were to come to it's aid, as it is committed to do so, they can isolate the TA in the north from the mainland by form of sea and air blockades. Without supplies getting through to the north, it is only a matter of time for the fighting to stop when the TA runs out of supplies, unless of course, they have been stockpiling since 1974 to last for few years. In this scenario, the more troops the TA have in the north, the more "Rich Targets" they will become due to their heavy concentrated numbers in a relatively small place, that much sooner they will be in need of supplies.

Turkey has only been on a EU territory since 2004, and since and even before then, there has been ongoing "peace" negotiations, along with Turkey's own EU membership talks, therefore, no one has been in a hurry to deal with the occupation in the north, in the hopes that it will just sort itself out in due course. The problem as I see it, if Turkey is denied EU membership and becomes an "outcast" by the EU, Turkey's future may take many turns within itself, and if they should become a hostile nation towards another EU member state, all bets may well be off as far as having any cordial relationship with Turkey by the west. It may in fact give the west an opportunity to break up Turkey into 2-3 parts, where the western part will become part of the EU, and the rest remaining in the east. But once again, my point really is not about anyone invading Turkey, but her vulnerability in having troops in northern part of Cyprus, where they will become trapped there if a formidable military force is able to cut of sea and air supply lines, the rest will take care of itself once the supplies run out to continue the fight.

I really do not know what Turkey's motives are to be in Cyprus. It is not the TCs, that much I know. It cannot be also for partial occupation of Cyprus, because that doesn't really help the mainland as far as security, so the only remaining possibility that makes any sense at all, is to have control over the whole island. That would make a lot of sense to me. This is the only action that can provide any security to the mainland, because at present it does not and it will be worse as Nikitas has already explained if there is a formal partition or recognition of the north. You are yet to see Turkey endorse any formal recognition of the north as an independent sovereign country. What they want, is to have a confederation state to form partnership with the RoC per the Annan Plan, so that the island can be slowly and gradually be taken over from within. This will take many years to achieve, but who cares. One thing for sure, that Turkey is not in Cyprus because it has "nice spots". Mainland Turkey has many many so called "nice spots".

Turkey may well be able to achieve the same objectives as a EU member, but they will have to start from scratch by taking most of the settlers back, leave the island for the Cypriots and maybe in the future, with population movement, bring about the change she wants, but she will have to give a lot of ground first, which they feel might not achieve their objectives this way in the long run, specially with derogations from the EU by implemented control on how many Turks can be on the island at any one time. I also don't think the EU members will allow Turkey to take over the whole island militarily, and if Turkey did try it, then we are back to my scenario where the TA will become "sitting duck" in the north once they get cut off from the mainland.

Anyway, this is just a scenario in the events of "WHAT IF" and in no way I'm suggesting any military solution to the Cyprus Problem..!

[Kikapu]

Shah,

Locally produced means very little in weaponry. The key is not the flying platform, but the systems that guide and control it. Those are almost always imported. With the exception of Israel and oddly enough Serbia, I do not know of any nations that have developed sophisticated guidance systems free from the usual sources Even Sweden's Saab jets are not free of foreign made gear.

In the case of the Israelis most of their cutting edge firms work in close collaboration with American firms anyway, another way for the Americans to ensure that they will not face superior technology in a conflict.

Just one more thing on this subject. The Americans control all the Navigation Satellites, therefore they can manipulate the signals to read what ever they want them to read on their enemy's systems. They will of course have all the codes to de-code the same signal in order to receive the correct information from the satellites.!

[SoSolidCrew]

"In fact, that was probably the only element you could pressure Turkey with."

I never thought for a minute that the EU process was a leverage factor allowing the RoC to pressure Turkey. On the other hand pressure can be applied in other ways, as the S300 affair proves. Except that the S300 are a bit of a mystery to this very day for other reasons.

A progressive, wealthy, RoC with a 72 mile frontier with the Turkish army, is pretty close to what Ecevit had described as a nightmare for Turkey- a Greek military presence in the Middle East, and that is enough pressure to solve the problem and it can be more effective than the threat of a veto in the EU.

If you put down lists of options for both sides to this problem, the Greek list is longer, odd as this might sound.

So you think the RoC can seriously pressurize Turkey with military threats? (not rhetorical)

I mean what is stopping Turkey from adding another 40K or more, on the island?

Shah,

In all seriousness, Turkey's 40K troops in the north are already trapped there with nowhere to go. They are actually "sitting ducks" militarily speaking and adding more troops to the island, will only increase their problem in the event that Turkey abandons her EU accession dreams and becomes hostile to a EU member state (RoC) and any military confrontation with the EU Block, their sea supply route will be cut off from the mainland with only couple of nuclear powered subs, "no fly zone" enforced between the north and the mainland, EU Block Troops on the ground in the south and the moment the shit hits the fan, it will become a "turkey shoot" (no pun intended) on the TA in the north and the whole thing will be over in matter of days. Militarily speaking, and I'm no military man, the TA in the north is in a very vulnerable location with no place to hide or retreat to if the going gets tough for them. They will only have two choices when their backs becomes the shores of northern Cyprus, to fight to the very end, or raise the white flag, in the event they had to face a real military force against them.

To this day, I cannot figure out as to why Turkey even needs to be in northern Cyprus for her strategic purpose. The mainland is only 40 miles away for god sake. We are not talking about Turkey wanting to hold onto, say Gibraltar, where they can have some influence who comes and goes through the Gibraltar Straights and a base far away from her shores, but northern Cyprus.???. Now, I would understand if they had all of Cyprus, but only part of it, serves no purpose to protect the mainland, because as Nikitas stated very clearly, if the north becomes annexed or that there is a formal partition, the RoC can then invite anyone a base in the RoC that may not be so friendly to Turkey and kick the British out. A foreign military power that might be a major threat to the mainland that's only 40 miles away, will be Turkey worse nightmares.

Turkey knows all this of course, and that's why there has not been an official partition taken place already or likely in the future, instead, the AP was going to give Turkey what it wanted, to have power over the whole island in the form of the so called "guarantor power". Well, that did not happen and any hold onto the north as I see it, is more of a liability than an advantage, militarily and economically speaking, other than perhaps have some bragging rights that they have a military victory under their belts over parts of the RoC, but such bragging rights over northern Cyprus can hardly be seen as a major military victory for a strong NATO member, considering the heavy loses that they incurred during the battle that can make any nation stand tall, but that only comes if the opponent was a formidable force. The RoC was not.!

Turkey has had an army sitting on a so called "EU" member for many years, how come no one has done anything about it so far?

Plus how are they "sitting ducks" if a few hundred thousand can be gathered in no time just 40 miles away?

They might have managed to hold back the invasion temporarily in the past causing a lot of damage, but that will be kind of hard this time if they already have 40K on the ground fully armed and ready.

I think you are overestimating the military pressure both the EU and the RoC can have over Turkey and seriously underestimating the military power of Turkey.

Who is going to do it, France? Germany? Italy? Greece? UK?

Let me remind you that all of these countries have had a go before, together (except Germany).

This was when turkey had no real military strength and we have left it back in the 1919's, I doubt anyone will go down that route ever again.

Unfortunately I find it hard to believe that any nation will take on Turkey for the RoC, if so where have they been for the past 35 years?

Maybe having an army on Cyprus is not all about directly protecting the mainland, clearly Cyprus is a sweet spot for many and it is why we are in this mess in the first place, or maybe you truly have to reconsider what you think you know regarding Turkey's motives or views on Cyprus.

Shah,

I think you will need to read what I wrote one more time.!

No one is suggesting that any military confrontation with Turkey over Cyprus will involve invading Turkey. I am talking about Cyprus only.

If Turkey were to turn hostile towards another EU member and the EU members were to come to it's aid, as it is committed to do so, they can isolate the TA in the north from the mainland by form of sea and air blockades. Without supplies getting through to the north, it is only a matter of time for the fighting to stop when the TA runs out of supplies, unless of course, they have been stockpiling since 1974 to last for few years. In this scenario, the more troops the TA have in the north, the more "Rich Targets" they will become due to their heavy concentrated numbers in a relatively small place, that much sooner they will be in need of supplies.

Turkey has only been on a EU territory since 2004, and since and even before then, there has been ongoing "peace" negotiations, along with Turkey's own EU membership talks, therefore, no one has been in a hurry to deal with the occupation in the north, in the hopes that it will just sort itself out in due course. The problem as I see it, if Turkey is denied EU membership and becomes an "outcast" by the EU, Turkey's future may take many turns within itself, and if they should become a hostile nation towards another EU member state, all bets may well be off as far as having any cordial relationship with Turkey by the west. It may in fact give the west an opportunity to break up Turkey into 2-3 parts, where the western part will become part of the EU, and the rest remaining in the east. But once again, my point really is not about anyone invading Turkey, but her vulnerability in having troops in northern part of Cyprus, where they will become trapped there if a formidable military force is able to cut of sea and air supply lines, the rest will take care of itself once the supplies run out to continue the fight.

I really do not know what Turkey's motives are to be in Cyprus. It is not the TCs, that much I know. It cannot be also for partial occupation of Cyprus, because that doesn't really help the mainland as far as security, so the only remaining possibility that makes any sense at all, is to have control over the whole island. That would make a lot of sense to me. This is the only action that can provide any security to the mainland, because at present it does not and it will be worse as Nikitas has already explained if there is a formal partition or recognition of the north. You are yet to see Turkey endorse any formal recognition of the north as an independent sovereign country. What they want, is to have a confederation state to form partnership with the RoC per the Annan Plan, so that the island can be slowly and gradually be taken over from within. This will take many years to achieve, but who cares. One thing for sure, that Turkey is not in Cyprus because it has "nice spots". Mainland Turkey has many many so called "nice spots".

Turkey may well be able to achieve the same objectives as a EU member, but they will have to start from scratch by taking most of the settlers back, leave the island for the Cypriots and maybe in the future, with population movement, bring about the change she wants, but she will have to give a lot of ground first, which they feel might not achieve their objectives this way in the long run, specially with derogations from the EU by implemented control on how many Turks can be on the island at any one time. I also don't think the EU members will allow Turkey to take over the whole island militarily, and if Turkey did try it, then we are back to my scenario where the TA will become "sitting duck" in the north once they get cut off from the mainland.

Anyway, this is just a scenario in the events of "WHAT IF" and in no way I'm suggesting any military solution to the Cyprus Problem..!

Turkey is not crazy to attack an EU country. And potentially, I do not see any intense of invading Balkans. Turkey is not a kind of "megalo-idea" state, at least; I can say that having 'more' lands on Balkans are not realistic and also not a plan of Turkey.

You've talked about the militaristic side of the crisis. So, this is why Cyprus is 'important' for Turkey, as a strategic area:

First of all, Turkey fears that one day, Cyprus would merge with Greece. That'd blockade the all open sea corridors of Turkey from the mainland coasts. So, Greece would have a great advantage against Turkey.

Second reason is, Turkey believes that if they leave the island alone, Cyprus would let Greece to have more aggressive military bases on the island. This would be a trouble and a great threat for Turkey since the southern Turkey is open to air and see attacks and Cyprus is a great location for that.

Third reason is, Turkey and many Turks in Turkey have that thought: "If we leave Turkey, all TCs on that island would be assimilated". You can call this a propaganda... But this is what people think and believe me, people in Turkey do believe that they really did save the lives of hundreds of thousands by the Operation of 1974. You may not agree with this; but this is what people believe here and Cyprus and Greece did nothing to change people's mind in Turkey.

Fourth reason is, Turkey and people think, because of the rejection of Annan Plan; South does not want to unite with North but they want to 'rule' the North.

Fifth is, there is no guarantee that the South-North conflicts would not start again, since the people believe that South does not want to see any Turks and TCs on the island.

Most of those problems are because of the lack of dialogue and I can say that, South's hostile actions against Turkey make people feel "See... we were right"

[boomerang]

Most of those problems are because of the lack of dialogue and I can say that, South's hostile actions against Turkey make people feel "See... we were right"

mwahahahaha....

what a classic sentence...cyprus hostile towards turkey...to this I say if in the event you had 2 brains you would still be lonely...

sorry for stealing your thunder kiks...

[SoSolidCrew]

You only got that line from the whole message? You really need some medical treatment.

[boomerang]

You only got that line from the whole message? You really need some medical treatment.

you do the same all the time...and here is an example with your own thread when asked about a credible link...your came back with a bullshit reply about the language of my country ignoring the fact no answer to the credible link...so inbred stop moaning and groaning...

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.php?p=472532#472532

so in short inbred one rule for you and different rules for others...up to your old tricks again, huh?...

[SoSolidCrew]

You only got that line from the whole message? You really need some medical treatment.

you do the same all the time...and here is an example with your own thread when asked about a credible link...your came back with a bullshit reply about the language of my country ignoring the fact no answer to the credible link...so inbred stop moaning and groaning...

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.php?p=472532#472532

so in short inbred one rule for you and different rules for others...up to your old tricks again, huh?...

Mr. Asshole,

I do not know any Greek and so I asked someone to confirm it.

But your mind is too fucked up so you can not even see this.

Byes.