From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.greek,soc.history
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Greek invasion in Cyprus 1974 cont...
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 19:25:20 EST
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <C0novn.4vt@acsu.buffalo.edu> v999saum@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Varnavas A. Lambrou) writes:

>Turkey needs to strive with all the means at her disposal to portray the
>Turkish Cypriots as an oppressed minority and the Cyprus Government and the
>Greek Cypriots as bloodthirsty tyrants. A powerful country which has for 
>years intevened violently and destructively in the affairs of a small 
>neighbouring country and which finally invaded it and engineered its
>partition clearly needs to manufacture moral justification.

Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know.
The Greeks started massacring the Turkish population on Cyprus 
in 1974. How do we account for this phenomenon? Amnesia?
In 1974, Turkiye stepped into Cyprus to preserve the lives
of the Turkish population there. This is nothing but a simple
historical fact. Unfortunately, the intervention was too
late at least for some of the victims. Mass graves containing 
numerous bodies of women and children already showed what
fate had been planned for a peaceful minority.

Turks are simply seeking guarantees that will preclude a
repeat performance by the fanatical cadres of the Greeks'
EOKA. If such assurances are not perfectly implemented,
there is every reason to expect that the local Greeks
will be misguided enough to perpetrate their past mistakes.

On such an occasion, the Turkish side may not find it
satisfactory to act with reluctance to go any further
than before, for it is unacceptable to remain always
defensive against cyclical vicious attacks.

Therefore it would be better to have a true federation
of two separate sections living in obligatory peace,
rather than another armed confrontation that would be
started by the Greeks and obligatorily but decisively
terminated by the Turks. 

Any folly that may be said to exist in the general
picture rests with Athens. In 1974, it was the despotic
colonels of the junta there who sponsored EOKA's belligerence.
They lost in Cyprus and eventually they lost at home
also.

The present Greek government is trying to tyrannize the
Turkish population in western Thrace by forbidding it
its ethnic and religious rights, which were established
through international treaties. One might be better
advised to remember that misadventures against Turkiye
do not serve Greece well.

An offer of membership in the European Common Market
as bait for concessions that may doom the Turks in
Cyprus to extinction is not a viable course for Greece
or her friends.

Neither Turkish lives nor Turkish honor has been placed
on the bidding block to be sold for commercial gain.

It is true that the Turkish sector in Cyprus is recognized
as a state by Turkiye only. Such recognition is ample
for the time being. The preferable hope for the future 
is the formation of a bona fide federation that will
afford equal and guaranteed chances of survival to both
sides.

In  1960  the  Republic  of  Cyprus  was  founded  with  the
participation  of  Turkish  and   Greek  Cypriots  as  equal
partners. However, Greek Cypriots never wanted independence,
but ENOSIS, or UNION WITH GREECE.

In  April  1963  the  Greek  Cypriots  ignored  the  Supreme
Constitutional Courts of Cyprus  when it ruled against them,
and its  neutral President  resigned. From that  day forward
Greek Cypriots  ATTACKED the  Turkish community  causing the
total  destruction of  103  of their  villages and  numerous
human life.

DEPRIVED of  their rightful  place in  the state,  the Turks
lived in  fear in fortified enclaves  for mutual protection,
squeezed into less than 3% of the island. It was in 1963 and
not in 1974, that Cyprus divided.

Turkey did  not occupy  the island,  but only  INTERVENED to
protect the Turkish Cypriot  community, using its legitimate
right  under  the  Treaty  of Guarantee,  and  to  stop  the
annexation of  the island  to Greece by  a military  coup in
1974, organised by a Greek junta.

Since 1974,  the Turkish  and Greek  Cypriots have  lived IN
PEACE in their respective areas,  no more killings have been
reported. Yet,  the Turkish  Cypriots still offer  a genuine
federation based on Equality and Power Sharing.

Cyprus is not a Greek island, but an island which belongs to
both the  Greek and  Turkish Cypriots.  Yet, the  Greek side
receives all international aid, which benefit entirely their
community,   and  finances   the  unfounded   Greek  Cypriot
Propaganda. The Turkish Cypriots do not trust the Greeks, or
be left to their mercy.

Therefore  the Turkish  Cypriots  are right  to  ask you  to
recognise their  independent state. This is  essential for a
peaceful solution  and for  a peaceful  co-existence between
the two communities.

SUPPORT  THE  PEACE,  RECOGNISE   THE  TURKISH  REPUBLIC  OF
NORTHERN CYPRUS

Serdar Argic

                           'We closed the roads and mountain passes that 
                            might serve as ways of escape for the Turks 
                            and then proceeded in the work of extermination.'
                                                       (Ohanus Appressian)
                           'In Soviet Armenia today there no longer exists 
                            a single Turkish soul.'    (Sahak Melkonian)