Cyprus-Forum.com

[Hermes]

Christopher Hitchens on the end of Kemalism in Turkey:

http://www.slate.com/id/2300537/

On Cyprus he writes:

But the sordid fact is that the "secular" military elite in Turkey had already sold out a number of the values that were real to Ataturk and necessary for Turkey's integration into the Eurosphere. The Turkish army not only allowed itself to become a participant in the dirty and illegal land grab that continues to offend all international laws and U.N. resolutions affecting the self-proclaimed colonial statelet in the north of the island of Cyprus, but in the early years of the occupation, the leader of Ataturk's party—Bulent Ecevit—was rounded up as a political detainee. This negation of free movement within EU borders has poisoned relations with Greece, driven tens of thousands of Cypriots into economic exile, and delayed the integration of two advanced economies—Turkey and Cyprus—at just the point when the Athenian economy cannot go it alone.