Cyprus-Forum.com

[reportfromcyprus]

An unbiased Merry Christmas to you too Joe

Seriously, all the best to everyone.

[eracles]

http://www.anatoliantimes.com/hbr2.asp?id=156565

The Economist this week:

"it would be a catastrophic geo-strategic failure if Europe and the West were to turn away Turkey, the exemplar of Muslim democracy, because of a small, bolshy Mediterranean island."

Translation: Forget about a solution acceptable to all parties, sacrifice the GCs for Turkey.

[reportfromcyprus]

Your translation is a little extreme ; they are saying that if Turkey doesn't enter the EU, it would be a "catastrophic geo-strategic failure."

Where do you infer that they don't want a solution that is acceptable to everyone? I don't agree with your conclusion.

Although frankly speaking, if a UN-brokered solution wasn't acceptable in 2004 (that was put together after decades of negotiations and based on the expertise of teams of constitutional specialists), then there's very little chance of finding another solution that will be acceptable to everyone.

I don't envy the group that has to try and create one...Finland is the latest victim of our government and leadership's inability to negotiate and communicate what they want. All they can do is say no.

Where is the vision?

[Piratis]

The Economist is again UK/US. They should talk for themselves, not for the West and Europe in general. The great majority of Europeans do not want Turkey in EU and Turkey will not enter the EU no matter how much the Americans want to. Europe has one USA dog in the Union already, we don't want another.

Why don't Turkey and UK become the 53rd and 54th USA states instead?

And reportfromcyprus , we said very clearly what we want: Democracy, human rights and respect of the sovereignty of our country. it is very simple really.

[Kifeas]

Your translation is a little extreme ; they are saying that if Turkey doesn't enter the EU, it would be a "catastrophic geo-strategic failure."

Where do you infer that they don't want a solution that is acceptable to everyone? I don't agree with your conclusion.

Although frankly speaking, if a UN-brokered solution wasn't acceptable in 2004 (that was put together after decades of negotiations and based on the expertise of teams of constitutional specialists), then there's very little chance of finding another solution that will be acceptable to everyone.

I don't envy the group that has to try and create one...Finland is the latest victim of our government and leadership's inability to negotiate and communicate what they want. All they can do is say no.

Where is the vision?

Oh ...come on, shut up with your nonsense! You clueless "know it all" that only reads the rubbish of the Cyprus Mail and the Anglo-Saxon anti-GC /pro-Turkish media, and you think you understand what is going on!

[miltiades]

Reportfromcyprus posted>
"""Although frankly speaking, if a UN-brokered solution wasn't acceptable in 2004 (that was put together after decades of negotiations and based on the expertise of teams of constitutional specialists), then there's very little chance of finding another solution that will be acceptable to everyone!!!

With due respect the AP was merely put together by the US and Brittain influencing the plannners at every stage of the lengthy negotiations. It was a plan that was designed to legalise the occupation by a foreign power of 1/3 of Cyprus. It was a plan that blatantly ignored the wishes of the vast majority of Cypriots for a truly united Cyprus not a Cyprus that would eventually , had the plan been accepted , fall into chaos and inter-communal conflict .Why the hell should I a Cypriot accept a plan that the Greek and Turkish flags would be flying high on our police stations , government buildings and municipalities. The Cypriot identity was totally ignored and coupled with the fact that the invading power was been exonerated and given the green light to control the destiny of my nation. All the bullshit written on the AP is purely that , bullshit favouring foreign interests without considering the future of the island and its people . It was a plan doomed from the start to fail. You are a journalist , I would be grateful if you could point me to one sentence in the AP where Unification of our Island was the predominant matter. Even our Cypriot roads were divided into TURKISH AND GREEK CONTROL .

[Kikapu]

Why don't Turkey and UK become the 53rd and 54th USA states instead? .

Who are the 51st & 52nd States.???

[miltiades]

Paphos and Limassol of course !

[Bananiot]

Here is one of Loucas's best:

A BLACK ANNIVERSARY
By Loucas Charalambous

DECEMBER 22 is the most significant date in the history of the Cypriot state. Had the events of this day not taken place, the history of the Republic of Cyprus would have been completely different to the one we know today. And Cyprus would not be the partitioned island with two states, a Turkish army, thousands of settlers and tens of thousands of refugees. Had the Republic been a polity with serious political leaders, the 22nd of December might have been established as a national day of prayer and reflection. In the schools, the day would be dedicated to teaching our students about the historic events of December 22, 1963, with discussions in the classroom, the core message being that such a day must never again be allowed to happen.

Needless to say, none of the above has transpired. It would be utopian to expect something like that. Besides, is it any coincidence that no newspaper, no radio or television station, and of course none of our political leaders have made a single comment about the anniversary? December 22, 1963 is a date that no one – least of all our President – wants to remember, a date they would rather erase from the calendar if possible. It is the date marking the start of the intercommunal clashes, a conflict which brought to this small island death, destruction, displacement of populations, the Green Line, the de facto carving up of the country and, ultimately, partition. Thousands of people, Greek and Turkish Cypriots, lost their lives in the bloody games started by the apprentice political wizards who were ruling Cyprus at the time. The leading part in this game was played by ‘Akritas’, a paramilitary organisation established two years earlier with the blessings of Archbishop Makarios. Its leader was the then Interior Minister Polycarpos Yiorkadjis, and his lieutenant was Tassos Papadopoulos, the current president of our state – or at least what’s left of it in the aftermath of the heroic follies of 1963 and the Turkish invasion 10 years later. No one will ever be able rationally to explain the paranoid behavior of Makarios, who steered matters toward conflict, despite the strong reaction of Greece but also of Turkey.

For many years thereafter, our political leadership fooled Greek Cypriots into thinking that it was the Turkish Cypriots alone who were responsible for the conflict. Officially, the events of December 22 are referred to as “the Turkish mutiny”. It took 40 years for the shocking eyewitness testimonies of Greek Cypriots to come to light, testimonies that demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt how guilty our leaders were. According to these testimonies, ‘Akritas’ stooped so low as to set fire to the Greek school of Ayios Kasianos (the perpetrator has admitted to this) or plant a bomb at the statue of EOKA hero Marcos Drakos, on the orders of Yiorkadjis himself (to his credit, an officer by the name of T. Chrysafis gave this testimony) in order to frame the Turkish Cypriots and thus justify the devastating actions of that paramilitary group! And yet, 42 years down the line, the state television, daily Phileleftheros and the radio station of the Zeus group, have the mind-boggling audacity to still speak of a “Turkish mutiny”. None of our political leaders today has the guts or the gallantry to admit or speak the truth. It will take many more years before what we said in the beginning shall come to pass – that a real leader will come forward who will establish December 22 as a day of national reflection, a memorial day dedicated to the thousands of casualties it caused on both sides of the ‘Green Line’.

[mehmet]

Seasons greetings Bananiot,

You do know that we are going to get a trail of responses accusing the author of this report and you as well of being a traitor saying they (the Turks) were going to do it anyway and this article is a pathetic attempt to draw a link between the actions of the state and the hostilities that followed. The truth is too uncomfortable for Papadopoulos to seek to make anything of the evetns of 1963, he probably suffers from memory blindness.

Traitor = someone who defies the script of portraying the GC's as helpless victims.