Seems like a simple enough situation to me - the EU honours its commitment to end the isolation of north Cyprus, which prompted Turkey to allow trade with the Republic of Cyprus in the first place, and Turkey can then indeed go ahead and extend the trade agreements to the Republic of Cyprus. The EU is unable to do this because the Republic of Cyprus entered the EU following this resolution and vetoed it. Nobody looking at this objectively - and a cursory glance at not only international editorials but also many from within the EU too is sufficient to ascertain this - would expect Turkey to just go along with this shameful state of affairs.

It is not a question of bigger countries or smaller countries - rather the number of countries without any cohesive framework to bind them.

The issue here (if we were pretending that Cyprus is really the issue and not an excuse) is that even if Turkey did not exist, the EU would still find itself unable to negotiate as a bloc with any country on any matter with any degree of confidence it could fulfill its end of the bargain.

We have situations were new members join and veto deals that the old members made, situations where a dispute arises between the other party and a member state, or even situations where a government change in a member state alters things. The EU in its current form is a political cripple and once you have finished blaming Turkey for this impasse, you then have to explain how a similiar situation arose when the EU attempted to make agreements with Russia but was prevented by a Polish veto.

The EU in its present state is simply not viable. 27 states with ever changing governments and each with the right of veto - it hardly needed an attempt to figure out how it would work out.

I can almost hear you saying “the constitution will fix it!”

That just leaves the small matter of them all agreeing on a consitution that will impede the offending right of veto…

“If Turkey had not intervened, I would not only have proclaimed ENOSIS (annexation to Greece) - I would have annihilated the Turks in Cyprus.” - Nicos Sampson, 1981, interview with the Greek newspaper Elefterotipia.

Yes, those poor Greeks and Greek Cypriots - how dare the UNFICYP and Turkey thwart all their plans throughout 1963 - 1974 to kill all of the Cypriot Turks and annex Cyprus to Greece. The international community is far better informed about the recent history of Cyprus than it used to be and this perversion of turning aggressors into victims is starting to sound very sophomoric. Billions of dollars worth of lobbying can only bury the truth for so long.

They cannot claim they did not have fair warning - as the American Ambassador George Ball explained, . “The Greek Cypriotes,” I wrote [to President Johnson], “do not want a peace-keeping force; they just want to be left alone to kill Turkish Cypriotes.”

“I spent the next forty-five minutes telling off Makarios and his ministers. I spoke, as I telegraphed the President that night, “in a fashion remote from diplomatic exchanges,” describing in lurid detail the consequences if he persisted in his cruel and reckless conduct. The Turks, I said, would inevitably invade, and neither the United States nor any other Western power would raise a finger to stop them.”

British prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas Home, said in his memoirs: “If the Greek Cypriot leadership could not treat the Turkish Cypriots as human beings they were inviting the invasion and partition of the island”.

Far from moving away from that era, every Greek Cypriot president since then, with one short-term exception, have been former Eoka members. Indeed, the current president, Tassos Papadopoulos, was formerly deputy chief to Akritas - author of the notorious Akritas Plan. Notorious but not quite extreme enough for Papadopoulos, who instead submitted a plan detailing how every Turkish Cypriot could be exterminated within 75 minutes (First Partition: 1963-64 Cyprus, Makarios Drusiotis).

Turkey and the EU made agreements regarding Cyprus - Turkey stands ready to fulfill its part, the EU claims it is unwilling or unable to do so.

Denis McShane - “In April 2004, European foreign ministers solemnly agreed to open trade links with northern Cyprus. They have broken that promise. I took part in that negotiation, and I find it shameful that powerful European states are unable to enforce their own decisions.”

For those interested in where the quotes I posted really come from, you can find them in among several articles by UN staff, ambassadors, diplomants, journalists, historians etc at

http://www.cyprus-conflict.net

An educational website described as “The best of its kind on the Web….exhaustive and balanced….”
– The Guardian, London

The small selection of quotes I provided are fully referenced and sourced.

Regarding the UN - Turkey, as party to the Treaty of Guarantee 1960, was legally entitled to intervene. The only courts that have ever determined otherwise are those of Greek Cypriots.

Furthermore, Greek Cypriots regularly refer to judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to bolster their claim but the ECHR is not empowered to make judgments on the legality of such matters and indeed has not made any such a judgment. ECHR judgements relate to the inability of Greek Cypriots to return to their property since 1974 - Turkish Cypriots could pursue similar cases regarding the properties that were siezed from them 1963 onwards, if they too ever felt inclined to waste their time for the sake of a symbolic gesture.

In 2004 the UN prosposed a resolution that the EU, UK, US, Russia and even Greece considered a just and fair basis for settlement. Turkish Cypriot approval was invalidated by the Greek Cypriot rejection.

It should be noted that the attempts of Greek Cypriots and Greeks to annex Cyprus to Greece and ethnically cleanse the island of Turkish Cypriots between 1963 and 1974 went on undeterred despite the presence of a UN peace keeping force from 1964 onwards.

I have two rhetorical questions, only one of which is applicable depending on whether or not you know anything about the recent history of Cyprus:

1) If you do know anything about Cyprus, you would have surely been aware of the truth in the citations in my initial response to you - therefore, why did you attempt to cast doubt on their validity by associating them to Turkish propaganda cites?

2) If you do not know anything about Cyprus, why did you attempt to cast doubt on my integrity by associating my citations to a Turkish propaganda cite despite not being qualified?

The simple test to apply here is this, using any search engine - if the small sample of citations I provided cannot be referenced to sources other than Turkish propaganda cites, my credibility is shot to pieces. If they can, then your credibility is shot to pieces.

However, you and I both know the outcome of any such investigation will expose you.

My willing to talk about the issue fully is further underpinned by my lack of hesitation to talk about aspects like ECHR rulings - and your attempt to distort the facts is further demonstrated by you using only the part of the paragraph that suits your point while discarding the rest.

If you intend to keep engaging in such shameless twisting and convolution (and this will become necessary if you plan to keep defending the genocidal position of Greek Cypriots) - do not paste paragraphs out of context when the original, in its entirity, sits in the post directly above it.

It would have been more reasonable to assume that the source of my upset is how you dishonestly took swipes at my integrity by falsely suggesting that the citations I provided could only could from a Turkish propaganda site.

It was me that brought up the ECHR rulings. Afterall, they are nothing but pointless judgments about Greeks being prevented from returning to their homes in the north. The only purpose these judgments serve is to help Greek nationalists on forums like this create smokescreens with which to hide the issue of their genocidal policies behind. Turkish Cypriots could just as easily pursue the same cases regarding the properties that were siezed from them from 63 onwards. They apparently are not quite as zealous about having pointless judgments to try and bolster their side of the argument, nor do they need to be when the genocidal nature of Enosis has been so comprehensively documented by international historians.

The difference is when the Greeks fled the north in 1974 in a situation that they, despite all warnings, spent 11 years creating, they were able to go south and make a fresh start of their lives. The Turks did not pursue them to wipe them out. The Turkish Cypriots had no such luck - those who fled from 1963 onwards were forced to then live in armed enclaves until 1974. So fanatical were the Greeks that even the UN peace keeping force could not pacify them.

Francis Henn, the UNFICYP Chief of Staff, described them as “besieged” and wrote “56,000 members of the community had been deprived [by the Greek Cypriot authorities] of their normal means of subsistence.”

One example of contemporary reporting, from Italy’s Il Giorno, “Right now we are witnessing the exodus of Turkish Cypriots from the villages. Thousands of people abandoning homes, land, herds. Greek Cypriot terrorism is relentless. This time the rhetoric of the Hellenes and the statues of Plato do not cover up their barbaric and ferocious behaviour.”

As for being Cypriot; I had assumed that much - it is only Cypriots that push the agenda you are presenting here. I shall take your word for it that this, rather than blinkering you behind your own national bias, gives you an insight. Unfortunately this forces me to accept that you attempted to debunk citations despite knowing full well that they were accurate.

While you bemoan the settlement of tens of thousands of Anatolians to Turkish Cyprus, you neglect to mention that there is a diaspora of several hundred thousand Cypriot Turks around the world who were forced to flee during 1963-1974, or those who have left because of the crippling economic embargo during the 33 years since. This embargo is ethnic cleansing by another name, and when the you protest migration by Turkish nationals it is really a protest that the depletion of the Turkish population on Cyprus is being prevented.

Like most Greek Cypriots, you would like history to begin from the moment that the first Turkish soldier stepped foot on Cyprus, because you are ashamed of the ethnic cleansing which you subjected the Turkish Cypriots to from 1963 to 1974.

To quote a recent article by Alice Robinson, “No court has ever held Turkey’s intervention in 1974 to be illegal. They had every right to intervene to save the Turkish Cypriots from the merciless attacks of the Greek
Cypriots, and should have done so eleven years earlier. They have every right to stay in Northern Cyprus until a settlement can be found, which will give the Turkish Cypriots some security. ”

“Turkey agreed to a phased withdrawal of its army under the Annan Plan, which the Greek Cypriots rejected. Remember that the Annan Plan was accepted by the whole world - except the Greek Cypriots - as a fair settlement. ”

“How can they have the nerve to talk, as they incessantly do, about human rights and legality, when in their treatment of the Turkish Cypriots they have shown utter contempt for the very meaning of law.”

I can only assume the two of you have corresponded at some point - her description of you is uncanny!

As much as it may suit your ego to believe that my ‘rhetoric’ fails in the face of reality, I fully stand behind my points, which I will reiterate:

1) The policy was to ethnically cleanse Cyprus of Turks and to annex it to Greece

2) The only courts that have ever held Turkey’s intervention to be illegal are those of Greek Cypriots

Yes, I make a habit of posting the same name in various forums - I have, afterall, only one name.

It is disappointing that you have resorted back to lying about my sources when I have clearly cited my references (so far in this thread, I have used cyprus-conflict.net, ECHR and UNFICYP - none of these are commonly considered propaganda sites).

outerconcept just used a similiar method, accusing me of being a cut and paste artist who has never read the sources that I cite. After first discarding the Akritas and Iphestos files as “hypothetical”, he was eventually forced to concede this plans were put into action from 1963 onwards - before calling me a “whiney, wide-eyed, mouth-frothing conspiratorialist”.

His final position, under the weight of documentation from me and other posters was this:

“But (1) Sampson was not the legitimate govt. of Cyprus–he overthrew the legitimate govt. of CY; (2) Everybody agrees that TR was justified in intervening to get rid of the illegal govt of Sampson, but not right in ethnic cleansing, colonizing, and imposing partition. Big difference.”

Is he correct that everyone agrees; do you agree that Turkey was justified in intervening?

See if you can respond without the ad hominems this time.

As I understand it;

1) You agree with outerconcept when he insults me, but not on his opinion regarding the actual issue - Cyprus, in which he concedes the intervention was justified

2) You cannot counter the historiography, so you pretend it comes only from Turkish propaganda sites, plugging your fingers in your ears and singing lalala when the actual sources are repeated for you several times so you can check for yourself

The point, which you have tried to deviate from by turning this into a personal slanging match, stands;

It was the policy of Greece and Greek Cypriots, from 1963 through to 1974, to ethnically cleanse Cyprus of Cypriot Turks and to annex Cyprus to Greece.

As for preferring outside help - UNFICYP was present, as stated several times, as was the third co-guarantor, Britain. This did not deter you at all in trying to carry out the above. The only thing that stopped you was the arrival of the Turkish army, as Sampson himself has stated.

It is hardly surprising then that no court, other than those of Greek Cypriots, have ruled the intervention illegal - or that outerconcept went as far as saying ‘everybody agrees that TR was justified in intervening’.

I am not the Cypriot here, you are. I am just a student of Middle Eastern history who has lived on both sides of the island. My motivation is not bigotry but rather disapproval of this perversion of history by Greek Cypriots because of the shame of their genocidal policies. What I have never understood is how people can be domestically so proud of those efforts while internationally denying them so vehemently.

I haven’t checked back in a while because I did not expect to find anything of merit. Your last post vindicates this assumption.

Throughtout the duration of our discussion, you kept suggesting I was posting from propaganda sites - I gave readily verifiable bonafide sources for what I posted which you could have checked in seconds. You then continued suggesting the same, undeterred. Apparently being taken seriously isnt a priority for you.

Your latest position is that I am a sock puppet because in one forum I used my full name, and in another I used my first name and initial. Incidentally, I did read Davis’ comments and echoed some of the same sentiments. As did, in that publication you posted, Martin Shaw from Colombo, Alice Robinson of New Delhi (a quick glance above and you will be reminded I pasted a portion of her article to you, so you know full well I had read Malaysiankini) and Martin Barry.

Perhaps I am everyone who has ever written these things about Cyprus, or perhaps - just perhaps - lots of people have the same idea because the idea is backed by evidence - the sort evidence that you dishonesty just rejected as ‘from turkish propaganda sites’, dispute clearly being shown that it wasn’t.

Perhaps I am the author of books that predate my birth about these events. Perhaps I am the auther of UNFICYP reports and perhaps I was the Ambassadors to the US, UK etc during the 60s and 70s.

Or perhaps you are just in a grave state of denial.

It is unfortunate we strayed from the facts but that was a course determined by your ad hominem attacks. You didn’t have much of a case against the argument so you just kept attacking the arguer.

Given the uglyness of the truth, I understand why you close your eyes and plug your ears to it.