Cyprus-Forum.com

[bakala]

Lysi
not all land in the TRNC was owned by greek cypriots
a lot of it belonged to Turkish Cypriots and British owners pre 74
also there are many other nationalities Buying land and building in the TRNC not only british
many british buyers are refusing to buy exchange land unless a search has been made and official confirmation that where the previous owner was a greek Cypriot that that previous owner has willingly given up his title to that land
so not all Englishmen are thieves

[Strahd]

Lysi
not all land in the TRNC was owned by greek cypriots
a lot of it belonged to Turkish Cypriots and British owners pre 74
also there are many other nationalities Buying land and building in the TRNC not only british
many british buyers are refusing to buy exchange land unless a search has been made and official confirmation that where the previous owner was a greek Cypriot that that previous owner has willingly given up his title to that land
so not all Englishmen are thieves

All title deeds that are published by the so-called TRNC are illegal by default and have no standing anywhere in the world.

The only official titles for ALL CYPRUS no matter wether the land belongs to Cypriots of the Muslim minority or Greeks can be published and creditted only by the ROC government including the land that is occuppied by force from the Turkish army. Even the modification of a pre 74 building in the occuppied areas is illegal because it does not have the proper licence from the government and it is not registered anywhere. Not a single new building in the occuppied lands is legal, no matter wether is on Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot land.

The problem is that the land of Cyprus is sold, bought and developed illegally under the protection of 40000 Turkish troops which have declared their own state. Could you ever grasp this or is it soooooo difficult?

[MR-from-NG]

Why don't you get your legal government to claim the land back? You are now in the elite EU clan, surely you must have the support of the Christians only club.

I believe the title deeds are legal and nobody should fear buying property in the north. In fact I have a friend developing on a large scale, he is complaining that sales are a bit slow. I will suggest he starts a new campaign and offer to BUY ONE and GET ONE FREE.

[Strahd]

Why don't you get your legal government to claim the land back? You are now in the elite EU clan, surely you must have the support of the Christians only club.

Remove the occupation army and then we can solve the property problem. The ROC government is built and harmonised with the rest of the civilised world. You are the ones who sold your culture in the past (e.g. stop writing arabic) to become European... We never did that even though no other people in this planet is using our writing it is written all over the currency you are drooling to get your hands on... tough luck!

[MR-from-NG]

Just checked every £50.00 note in my pocket. No Greek text, just the queens head. Long live the QUEEN.

[Strahd]

Yeah it is really cool for someone to be more priviledged than your children just because of their father... I have learned that in a democratic society if someone wants his head on a bank note he has to earn it, not be there just because his father was there before him...

As for the Euro and the UK... do not worry it is innevitable that your precious pound will be replaced by the Euro, the UK corporations are already dealing with Euro and innevitably the pound will loose if it is not replaced. It is just because of the narrow minded politics of the UK, it has always been the last to adopt the innevitable.

[Svetlana]

Title Deeds for pre 1974 TC and foreign owned land in the occupied areas were issued by the Cypriot Government and are 100% legal.

Lana

[Strahd]

Title Deeds for pre 1974 TC and foreign owned land in the occupied areas were issued by the Cypriot Government and are 100% legal.

Lana

I never said anything different, however building or modifying a house or building in the ROC needs a licence from the department of Town Planning and Housing in addition to the Engineers and Architects who designed it to be memebrs of the Scientific and Technical Chamber of Cyprus.

FACT

Any housing development in the occuppied areas after 1974 is currently illegal, no matter if it is done on stolen greek Cypriot land or Turkish Cypriot land.

Why is this so difficult to understand! Anything that is beeing done in the occuppied areas is illigal against the international law.
-Telecommunications are illegal
-Broadcasting is illegal
-Commerce is illegal
-Development is illegal

TRNC is an illegal state recognised by no one apart from those who established it, Turkey.

[Alexis]

After independence in 1960 Makarios was made president, then it really gets messy and confused.

He became President of a newly formed nation. Where his ambitions and loyalties lay is the real mystery. On the one hand his greek and gc rivals still wanted to complete the hope of enosis. Their reasoning was that (a) with the british now gone getting rid of the tcs shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and it could be done in a week or so, before turkey had time to react, and once this had been accomplished there would be no reasonable obstacle to completing the original goal i.e. enonsis. Or (b) the tcs would have to accept enosis whether they wanted it or not.

Of all the high ranking greek and gc officials Makarios was the one who stood back and took the threat of Turkey implementing guarantor power seriously. Or then again, as a man of God maybe he found it hard to reconcile his religious beliefs with slaughtering innocent beings. The Greek mainland leaders became untrusting of Makarios, and a rift began to grow between Nicosia and Athens.

From here I see three possibilities

1) Makarios having tasted power in Cyprus turned his back on the idea of Enosis. Why should he now give up the power which he fought the British for, to Athens?

2) As a man of God he may have harboured desires to live in peace and forge an independent nation of gc and tc living in peace and harmony.

3) He still envisaged Enosis.

Hi rawk,

I think that throughout the 50s and early 60s Makarios' objective was clear, Enosis. This is what, I believe, he refers to as the 'National Cause'. When the Junta took over in Greece, things changed, however, and in light of the troubles in Cyprus, I believe Makarios began to have second thoughts about Enosis. This doesn't mean that he didn't still look upon that as a possible longterm objective, and indeed some argue that Cyprus joining the EU is a form of Enosis, but perhaps he had the vision, at that time, to see how the situation evolved and then try to forge close ties with Greece when the situation there improved.

The first two options enraged Athens – the third enraged Ankara.

Whichever path he took he was damned. He had to keep Athens happy, Athens did presumably finance his war of independence against Britain and wanted to see the rewards of their backing. He had to keep Ankara happy as well.

Under these conditions it is no surprise that whatever he did he had to do under a veil of secrecy. Did he authorise the sporadic attacks which gcs inflicted upon tcs, or did someone like grivas backed by Athens do them without Makarios’s knowledge.
Did Makarios still harbour real thoughts of enosis, but fearing Turkish guarantor power would not authorise a full scale attack on tcs, but instead played a diplomatically subtle game of mild ethnic cleansing of tcs, with political deprivation of tcs under the banner of protecting the national interest, together with the sporadic violent attacks on tcs, making security and life so uncomfortable for tcs that they would want to leave of their own accord, thus enabling the completion of Enosis, with limited bloodshed.

I personally do not think Makarios would have authoprised deliberate attacks against TCs, but having said this he did have a blase attitude towards the attacks that did happen. I believe it was an attitude along the lines that if TCs were being killed it was due their terrorist actions and that if innocents were being killed it was regrettable but unavoidable given the circumstances. It is very easy to slip into this mindframe when conflicts arise. I have observed a similar attitude with regards the 1974 intervention: "it was a war, bad things happen in wars", making it easy for people to justify attrocities in their heads.
Politically he was certainly playing the game to facilitate Enosis and deprive TCs of their rights under the 1960s agreements, but I cannot see how planning deliberate attacks against TCs would give his cause any impetus even in a 'mild' form, TCs were never going to leave the island completely. Despite what is said in the Akritas plan, I still believe that the 1963/64 was not planned. Both sides blame each other for orchestrated attacks on each other in December 1963 and it's hard to know exactly what happened, but what is clear is that both sides clearly had prepared paramilitary factions ready to engage in combat long before 1963.
There were obviously elements in the government and amongst ex-EOKA who's objective was Enosis at any cost, but if we judge Makarios on his entire reign and not simply the 1960-67 era you will see that there were large differences between himself and the more extreme GC elements.

“Foreign factors”?
Britain didn’t really come into it that much and would have been happy with any settlement agreed upon by Greece, Turkey, and the people of Cyprus, providing Britain kept a presence on the island i.e. their bases, particularly in light of the middle east. America was happy to use the british bases for intelligence, after all they had large bases in Turkey. Americas biggest concern was keeping the Soviets out of Cyprus.

Pretty much agreed here, UK interests were strategic, don't think she ever was intrinsically on any particular side.

Turkey?
Turkey was well aware that with no Tcs on Cyprus Turkey would have no legal reason, to be on Cyprus, and certainly no international support. To this end and with tcs position and will gradually eroding, did they have something to do with the planning of the 74 coup, thus giving them a right to send in her troops? Turkey certainly did not want to stand by and allow the suffering of tcs only 40 miles from her shores.

I'm sure that Turkey did want to protect TCs, but it is also clear, especially from her actions that there was more to it than that, she too had strategic interests in Cyprus and was obviously nervous about having a majority Greek island so close to her shores.
The parallels between Turkey and Greece are very stark during the 1960s.

USA?
It has been said that the coup was USA backed, if so they would have been the winner whatever the result. They would have the Greek colonels whom they allegedly supported in charge of Cyprus, instead of Makarios who had threatened friendship with the Soviets, or USA would have had any ally Turkey in the driving seat. However it should be noted that Turkey did not take all of Cyprus but only a third. This may have been because of US demands, or it may have been to provide a safe haven for tcs, as well as providing a military presence on both two sides of the sea off her southern shores.

Can't really disagree here, and you are probably right about Turkey, I think she knew she could not get away with taking too much of Cyprus, so I think she took as much as she could possibly get away with at the time. What I think is clear is that her action can't have been solely for providing a safe haven for TCs, if it was, why take as much of the island as she did? By doing so she has (perhaps inadvertently) created problems for the TCs. I would wager that if only, say 20% of the island was taken in 1974, you would probably have recognition by now.
Also note which part of the island was taken, this wasn't particularly noted for higher than average numbers of TCs, but did account for about 70% of Cyprus' economy in 1974. The north also happens to be the part of Cyprus closest to Turkey, which obviously facilitated the intervention but is also key to Turkey's strategic aims.

Greece
During the 60's She secretly sent between 10 and 20,000 thousand soldiers to Cyprus, what were they for? and what kind of govt was Makarios running if he was unaware of these soldiers?. Cyprus is not such a big place that 20 or even 10 thousand soldiers go un-noticed.. As a defense force even 20,000 Greek soldiers wouldn’t have held up a real Turkish military attack for more than a few months.

Greece was playing a similar game to Turkey at this time. Turkey didn't send troops to Cyprus until 1974 and this should be acknowledged but she did have effective superiority over Cyprus for the whole time and gave much support to TC paramilitaries. Makarios would have backed these forces in the pre-Junta days to increase ties with Greece in preparation for Enosis.
I would say that in 1963 Turkey was not best prepared to engage fully in Cyprus and this is why I don't think she did. by 1974 she had a revamped airforce and new tanks and was able to do so with some guarantee of success. It is interesting to note that once the Junta fell in Athens and Karamanlis was able to mobilise some forces in Cyprus, there was an appreciable amount of resistance to the Turkish intervention. The key to Turkey's success was her air superiority and her proximity to Cyprus.

[bakala]

ahhhh alexis and rawk are back thank god for wisdom and tolerance
c
an you please explain to Strahd his agressive and confrontational stance only gets the Brits ready to fix bayonettes and stand their ground

Strahd advice is always welcome from every source but if you start to give orders about what Brits can or cant do in someone elses country ( TRNC ) then you will find you only aggravate the situation.