Cyprus-Forum.com

[CyprusNewsReport]

Why don't you ever talk about peace? Why are the posts always about war and hatred and bitterness? Don't you know that you are all individually responsible for communal relations and as long as you decide to remain enemies - you will!

When will you look forwards instead of backwards?

Simple answer to that is, the Turks demand whats not theirs and want to run roughshod over us.

Communal relations start with respecting human and democratic rights, something the Turks know nothing about. When you have 40,000 heavily armed foreign troops pointing guns as you with daily threats from the more powerful country nearby, how can you think of anything else.

Your question(s) should be directed to the Turks not the the GCs.

Thank you very much CBBB, this is the post!
There are full of hatered in this forums and no one speak about peace.
That is why we are stalling around for 36 years without peace.
As a reply from B-25;
No my friend, this question should be forwarded to you GC's as well, beacuse you dont know how much we suuffered from army/ from status quo.
Believe me you dont know. Just read Şener Levent's Politis column to understand little bit.
And yes, let's talk about peace!!!

Thanks r, it is encouraging to know that others feel the same way. Peace comes from within, and if we are determined and courageous, no men with guns - regardless of their nationality - will take it away from us.

[CyprusNewsReport]

Turkey maintains that it is the presence of their armed forces that has maintained peace in Cyprus for so long.

What we have now is a cease fire, not peace. The only reason we do not have battles today is because the Cypriot people have chosen to fight for the freedom of their island by political means, even though we had every right to fight the invaders of our country in all ways possible.

That's one way of looking at it. But a ceasefire is the step before peace. Political point scoring is a step back, because its ultimate goal is not to create a safe, healthy community but instead, to win a verbal or legal battle.

Just one glance at the newspapers shows that we have major problems to deal with; crime, high exhaust emissions leading to environmental and health damage, the death toll on the roads is...frightening! Is that an acceptable price for focusing all our resources on political fighting? Particularly when most of that fighting is - infighting.

[CyprusNewsReport]

There is no peace whilst there is a threat.

No peace of mind maybe (for some).

Every major world power that has (or wants to have) nuclear weapons maintains that it is the threat of nuclear weapons that maintains world peace.

Turkey maintains that it is the presence of their armed forces that has maintained peace in Cyprus for so long.

That is typical double-speak on Turkey's part. To me, peace is clearly not enforced with guns or with nuclear weapons - when has a nuclear weapon ever been used in war except in World War II? It's not like we can remember it ourselves. Maybe the world just realised what a bloody stupid thing nukes are! Imagine being the authors of our own suicide notes..."can't take it anymore, going to commit mass suicide by nuclear destruction." How dumb would we be? I trust that millenia of evolution has given us more brains than that.

Turkey should have changed its policy in Cyprus many years ago, it's wasting its time with troops on the island. But since it is slow to change and stuck in the past, then it is up to us to move ahead with our own peace-making. Why should we wait for Turkey?

[Oracle]

Turkey should have changed its policy in Cyprus many years ago, it's wasting its time with troops on the island. But since it is slow to change and stuck in the past, then it is up to us to move ahead with our own peace-making. Why should we wait for Turkey?

How do you propose to go about "peace-making"?

Even protesting, unarmed, leads to this:



... and this:

[CyprusNewsReport]

Turkey should have changed its policy in Cyprus many years ago, it's wasting its time with troops on the island. But since it is slow to change and stuck in the past, then it is up to us to move ahead with our own peace-making. Why should we wait for Turkey?

How do you propose to go about "peace-making"?

Even protesting, unarmed, leads to this:



... and this:

Once again we go back to the past.

I say again, nothing can be done about the sacrifices those two made. And Turkey stands guilty of murder. Now what?

Do you blame every single Turkish Cypriot for the actions of psychotic extreme militants? I do not! And again, I refuse to allow Turkey's violent actions to turn me against my compatriots.

[CyprusNewsReport]

Turkey should have changed its policy in Cyprus many years ago, it's wasting its time with troops on the island. But since it is slow to change and stuck in the past, then it is up to us to move ahead with our own peace-making. Why should we wait for Turkey?

How do you propose to go about "peace-making"?

Even protesting, unarmed, leads to this:



... and this:

Once again we go back to the past.

I say again, nothing can be done about the sacrifices those two made. And Turkey stands guilty of murder. Now what?

Do you blame every single Turkish Cypriot for the actions of psychotic extreme militants? I do not! And again, I refuse to allow Turkey's violent actions to turn me against my compatriots.

My first proposal is that we should decide not to blame Cypriots! There are so few of us, why should we turn against each other?

The first step in peace is to accept each other for who we are and tolerate each other's different languages, religions, cultures - there is richness in variety and we can learn from each other.

The second step is to refuse to allow Turkey to divide and rule, and again, that is a mental leap, a paradigm change. It means not rejecting each other, and opening our minds to living in peace with each other.

[Nikitas]

Tw ogenerations of TCs have grown up with the idea that they cannot live with GCs, but that they have a right to Cyprus, ergo the only way for them to live in Cyprus is on a part of it devoid of GCs.

How can you have peace with that mindset?

[chedda]

He said, she said, well i didn't start it !

Think now and the new generations not the past peace is possible. If there is peace the international community will start to ask why the Turkish military is here. Peace is your best weapon.

[AlanwithoneL]

Why don't you ever talk about peace? Why are the posts always about war and hatred and bitterness? Don't you know that you are all individually responsible for communal relations and as long as you decide to remain enemies - you will!

When will you look forwards instead of backwards?

Simple answer to that is, the Turks demand whats not theirs and want to run roughshod over us.

Communal relations start with respecting human and democratic rights, something the Turks know nothing about. When you have 40,000 heavily armed foreign troops pointing guns as you with daily threats from the more powerful country nearby, how can you think of anything else.

Your question(s) should be directed to the Turks not the the GCs.

Turkey should not be pointing their guns, their troops are here illegally and they should go home.

But their threats can only be a threat to peace if we allow it to be. The dictatorship of a military threat will not prevent me from being on a friendly basis with the average person from the Turkish-Cypriot community. This threat will not twist me into enmity with my neighbor.

I direct my question at people from both communities. We've inherited this situation, we're the only people who are going to do anything about it.

CyprusNewsReport,

You have my utmost respect Sir. This is exactly what would be expected from any reasonable and rational person, unfortunately those of this forum seem to lack common sense and common decency. I say well done to you Sir and please keep posting.

[Piratis]

Turkey maintains that it is the presence of their armed forces that has maintained peace in Cyprus for so long.

What we have now is a cease fire, not peace. The only reason we do not have battles today is because the Cypriot people have chosen to fight for the freedom of their island by political means, even though we had every right to fight the invaders of our country in all ways possible.

That's one way of looking at it. But a ceasefire is the step before peace. Political point scoring is a step back, because its ultimate goal is not to create a safe, healthy community but instead, to win a verbal or legal battle.

Just one glance at the newspapers shows that we have major problems to deal with; crime, high exhaust emissions leading to environmental and health damage, the death toll on the roads is...frightening! Is that an acceptable price for focusing all our resources on political fighting? Particularly when most of that fighting is - infighting.

The ultimate goal of our political struggle is not point scoring but the liberation of our country from Turkey (whether this is possible with just political means and no military action is another story).

A ceasefire can be a step before peace or a step before the resumption of battles. It depends.

I understand how for you the "high exhaust emissions" is a more important issue than 1/3rd of Cyprus being occupied by foreign invaders, but that is because you are a foreigner.