Cyprus-Forum.com

[halil]

Loucas Charalambous writing in the Mail refers to an interview in last week’s Sunday Mail, in which Dervis Eroglu said: “No-one in Cyprus is any longer a refugee. On both sides people have established new lives, so what we need is a solution that does not bring about social upheaval. I am not saying some Greek Cypriots cannot come and live among us, but it has to be limited. If 160,000 Greek Cypriots returned to the north, where are we supposed to go?” Needless to say, he adds it caused the usual knee-jerk reaction.

He says that clearly the Turkish Cypriot leader meant that close to 40 years after the movement of populations, the people on both sides have settled in their new places of residence. They have created new lives and the truth is that almost none of them would be prepared to leave his current home to go back and start from the beginning again. This is a simple truth, a reality that no political slogan or piece of rhetoric could ignore. It might not suit the demagogues who dominate our political life, it might not suit the pseudo-patriots of the mass media but this is the truth.

Interestingly, the view expressed by Eroglu is shared by the vast majority of the Greek Cypriot refugees. It is no coincidence that the majority of them voted against the settlement in 2004.

Most of the refugees who were over 40 years of age in 1974 have now passed away. Those who were under 20 are now middle aged, with their own families, living and working throughout the free areas. None of them would want to settle in the north. What would they do there? As for those who were between 21 and 40 in 1974, the majority of them are now pensioners with grandchildren.

So who are the refugees whom the demagogues are claiming want to return to the north under Turkish Cypriot administration? And if some of them would want to return, where is the problem? Even Eroglu’s proposals on the property issue say that 15 per cent of the population in the north could be Greek Cypriot.

Kyrenia currently has a population of 50,000 which would mean that 7,500 thousand Greek Cypriots could return if they wanted to. But in 1974, only 3,000 Greek Cypriots were living in Kyrenia and about half of them have died since then. So there would be no problem for all remaining 1,500 refugees were to return to Kyrenia if they wanted to do so.

I mention this only to highlight the stupidity and superficiality behind the slogans and vacuous rhetoric about the “return of all refugees”. If Eroglu were smarter, he would have proposed that any refugee who wanted to could return to Kyrenia. He would have made complete fools of us when a hundred refugees, at most, decided to return. Yet all this demagoguery is official policy. And then we wonder why nobody outside Cyprus takes us seriously.

[halil]

The President is deluding himself

An editorial in the Sunday Mail says that when President Christofias goes to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, we hear all kinds of boasts. This week we were informed that, during a meeting at UN headquarters, the president told the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Turkey was not ready to solve the Cyprus problem. He also accused Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu of engaging in a blame game and of being used in Ankara’s communications game. After exposing Turkey’s ‘unacceptable’ behaviour, he asked Ban to urge the Turkish leadership to translate words into deeds and the Secretary-General, reportedly, agreed to do so.

But there was no evidence to suggest that Ban made such a request at his subsequent meeting with President Abdullah Gul. On the contrary, according to a UN spokesman, Ban encouraged Gul and Turkey to carry on helping maintain the momentum of the Cyprus talks while Gul said that Turkey would carry on co-operating with the UN in the negotiations.

Not everything said in these meetings is made public, but it is doubtful that Ban would have reprimanded Gul for not translating words into deeds, as Christofias had claimed. A few days earlier, at his meeting the Greek PM George Papandreou, Ban had reportedly asked for the talks to be intensified and would have made the same plea to Christofias, even if this was not reported by the latter.

The problem however is that every time the UN has proposed the intensification of the talks, it is the Cyprus president who is resistant and not the Turkish side. In this way Christofias is assisting Ankara’s communications game, because he is allowing Turkey to appear more committed to a settlement than the Greek Cypriot side. While this is not necessarily true, it is the main impression created among third parties, no matter what Christofias says about communications games and Turkey’s unwillingness to solve the Cyprus problem.

He should know that words count for nothing, as the DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades pointed out on Thursday when he called on Christofias to stop deluding himself about what was actually happening. Unless Turkey was tested at the negotiating table, we would never establish whether she was playing a communications game or was sincerely interested in a settlement. This was something that Christofias has failed to do and was the reason why everyone outside Cyprus is praising Turkey’s allegedly constructive approach to the talks.

The president is deluding himself if he genuinely thinks that by reporting Turkey to the UN Secretary-General, of playing a communications game and not being ready to solve the Cyprus problem, he is winning diplomatic victories. He also needs to translate words into deeds if he is to expose the games that Ankara has been playing so successfully in the last few years and have earned kudos from everyone.

[Piratis]

As usual this so called "journalist" agrees with everything the Turks say

If he is right then what is the need to put any limit on the amount of Greek Cypriots that can settle in the north part of Cyprus?

If you think that Loucas Charalambous knows what he is talking about then agree to no such limit, since according to him just "a hundred refugees, at most" will want to return anyway.

But the Turks will not agree to such thing because they also know that what Loucas Charalambous says is worthless crap.

Then Loucas Charalambous tells us that "If Eroglu were smarter..." as if it is Eroglu who takes such decisions. Eroglu might not be smart (and he doesn't need to be since he is just a puppet) but I bet he is smarter than Loucas Charalambous who still didn't even realize that the TC puppets are not the ones who form the position of the Turkish side on the Cyprus problem.

Kyrenia currently has a population of 50,000 which would mean that 7,500 thousand Greek Cypriots could return if they wanted to. But in 1974, only 3,000 Greek Cypriots were living in Kyrenia and about half of them have died since then.

Even is we assume his numbers are correct (which I highly doubt since he never gets anything right):

1) Most of those 50.000 are illegal settlers who will leave from Cyprus once a real solution is found. Not to mention that even many of the TCs could settle in the southern part.

2) Those 3.000 Greek Cypriots are now more not less. People don't just die, they are also being born.

3) The limit would apply for the whole "TC state" (or whatever you would call it), not per city or district.

[Me Ed]

Whist Eroglu is making announcement about the "realities" of Cyprus like no one in Cyprus is a refugee, perhaps its time he accounced to the world something that he has been stating for a long time by his own words, deeds and actions:

There is no longer such a thing as a Turkish Cypriot.

[Bananiot]

But Ed my boy, we were the first to teach this behaviour. We were willing to sell Cyprus to Greece and become Greeks long before the Turkish Cypriots longed to become Turks.

[Piratis]

But Ed my boy, we were the first to teach this behaviour. We were willing to sell Cyprus to Greece and become Greeks long before the Turkish Cypriots longed to become Turks.

We were Greeks long before any Turks existed.

What they call "Turkish Cypriots" are simply a Muslim minority created in Cyprus during Ottoman rule as it happened to several other Greek islands and territories.

The idea to create this separate "Cypriot Nationality" with "Greek Cypriots" and "Turkish Cypriots" was not created by Cypriots. Cyprus has being part of the Greek Nation for 1000s of years, and like most other parts of the Greek nation it has a Muslim minority during the last centuries.

[Me Ed]

Whilst that is true Bananiot, it can be argued that it was the Turkish deep state that wanted the TCs to become Turks at around that time.

Whilst the vast majority of GCs have dropped this "Greek" aspiration in preference to independence (another reality Eroglu chooses to ignore), Turkey is pressing full steam ahead with turning the occupied area into a full Turkish province.

The point I'm making is that the only people that believe in the existence of TCs are TC themselves and the GCs.

I even believe that Eroglu knows that TCs exist but is under instructions from Ankara not to generally describe them as TCs in his speaches but to meld all the inhabitants of the north as "Turks of Cyprus" for the eventual creation of a Turkish province.

[halil]

Turkish, Greek Cypriot leaders make opposing calls for talks

Disagreements on how to resolve the prickly Cyprus dispute have once more erupted between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, this time on whether Turkey should be a party in ongoing UN-led negotiations.

Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu and Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias have both been in New York to attend the UN General Assembly. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held bilateral meetings with Christofias on Tuesday and with Eroğlu on Saturday.

Both meetings focused on the status of the ongoing negotiations which began in 2008 -- as the latest of many mediation efforts after the then-leaders of the two communities committed themselves to working towards a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality, as defined by relevant Security Council resolutions.

Christofias, addressing the UN General Assembly on Friday, said he wanted to hold direct talks with Turkey on the future of peace talks on the ethnically split island, where a decades-old conflict threatens Ankara’s bid to join the European Union.

“From this podium, I repeat my call to the Turkish leadership to meet me, parallel to the negotiating process, so that I can share with them my vision for a solution to the Cyprus problem which would serve the interests of the Cypriots, of Turkey, of Greece, as well as of peace and security in the region,” Christofias told the assembly.

Eroğlu, however, speaking at a press conference following his meeting with Ban on Friday, firmly ruled out such a composition of negotiation when reminded of Christofias’ remarks. “The problem is between Turks and Greeks living in Cyprus. The Greek Cypriot will for holding negotiations with Turkey means escaping the negotiating table. Certainly, neither Turkey nor Greece would like to be the intervener in an agreement that is not embraced by both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. Moreover, Turkey is our motherland and, of course, we are having consultations [with Turkey]; but we are the parties who will resolve the Cyprus dispute,” Eroğlu said at the press conference held at the Türkevi, which hosts Turkey’s permanent representation to the UN and Turkey’s consulate general in New York.

Greece, Turkey and former colonial ruler Britain are guarantor powers of Cyprus’ independence agreement in 1960 -- giving them the right to intervene militarily if the terms of that agreement are threatened. The four-decade-old Cyprus problem erupted after the eastern Mediterranean island was granted independence from Britain in 1960, soon followed by an outbreak of inter-communal clashes in 1963. The island was ethnically divided between a Greek south and a Turkish north when the Turkish military intervened in 1974 under the terms of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee after diplomacy failed to end unrest on the island. In addition to the Turkish Cypriot Peace Forces Command (KTBK), made up of 4,500 Turkish Cypriots, there are around 35,000 Turkish troops stationed on the island.

“The fact that he [Christofias] wants to escape the negotiating table and meet with Turkey shows that he doesn’t accept us as a counterpart -- which is an extremely wrong idea. His counterpart is us,” Eroğlu said.

He, nonetheless, added that once the negotiations reached a certain level of mutual consensus, then the Turkish Cypriot side wishes to have a quadrilateral meeting among Cypriot leaders, Greece and Turkey.

27 September 2010, Monday

TODAY’S ZAMAN WITH WIRES ANKARA

[Brittania]

:!: Turkish, Greek Cypriot leaders make opposing calls for talks


Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu and Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias have both been in New York to attend the UN General Assembly.

The President of Cyprus was there to attend and address the General Assembly , the turkish cypriot community leader was there to meet with the Cypriot President and the UN Secretary.

[boomerang]

:!: Turkish, Greek Cypriot leaders make opposing calls for talks

Disagreements on how to resolve the prickly Cyprus dispute have once more erupted between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, this time on whether Turkey should be a party in ongoing UN-led negotiations.

Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu and Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias have both been in New York to attend the UN General Assembly. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held bilateral meetings with Christofias on Tuesday and with Eroğlu on Saturday.

Both meetings focused on the status of the ongoing negotiations which began in 2008 -- as the latest of many mediation efforts after the then-leaders of the two communities committed themselves to working towards a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality, as defined by relevant Security Council resolutions.

Christofias, addressing the UN General Assembly on Friday, said he wanted to hold direct talks with Turkey on the future of peace talks on the ethnically split island, where a decades-old conflict threatens Ankara’s bid to join the European Union.

“From this podium, I repeat my call to the Turkish leadership to meet me, parallel to the negotiating process, so that I can share with them my vision for a solution to the Cyprus problem which would serve the interests of the Cypriots, of Turkey, of Greece, as well as of peace and security in the region,” Christofias told the assembly.

Eroğlu, however, speaking at a press conference following his meeting with Ban on Friday, firmly ruled out such a composition of negotiation when reminded of Christofias’ remarks. “The problem is between Turks and Greeks living in Cyprus. The Greek Cypriot will for holding negotiations with Turkey means escaping the negotiating table. Certainly, neither Turkey nor Greece would like to be the intervener in an agreement that is not embraced by both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. Moreover, Turkey is our motherland and, of course, we are having consultations [with Turkey]; but we are the parties who will resolve the Cyprus dispute,” Eroğlu said at the press conference held at the Türkevi, which hosts Turkey’s permanent representation to the UN and Turkey’s consulate general in New York.

Greece, Turkey and former colonial ruler Britain are guarantor powers of Cyprus’ independence agreement in 1960 -- giving them the right to intervene militarily if the terms of that agreement are threatened. The four-decade-old Cyprus problem erupted after the eastern Mediterranean island was granted independence from Britain in 1960, soon followed by an outbreak of inter-communal clashes in 1963. The island was ethnically divided between a Greek south and a Turkish north when the Turkish military intervened in 1974 under the terms of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee after diplomacy failed to end unrest on the island. In addition to the Turkish Cypriot Peace Forces Command (KTBK), made up of 4,500 Turkish Cypriots, there are around 35,000 Turkish troops stationed on the island.

“The fact that he [Christofias] wants to escape the negotiating table and meet with Turkey shows that he doesn’t accept us as a counterpart -- which is an extremely wrong idea. His counterpart is us,” Eroğlu said.

He, nonetheless, added that once the negotiations reached a certain level of mutual consensus, then the Turkish Cypriot side wishes to have a quadrilateral meeting among Cypriot leaders, Greece and Turkey.

27 September 2010, Monday

TODAY’S ZAMAN WITH WIRES ANKARA

says the dude that can't shit without permission...