From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.history,soc.rights.human
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Re: Occupation
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 19:42:55 EST
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <1992Dec21.085800.1261@Princeton.EDU> niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:

>And Turkey is occupying Cyprus.

You live with an illusion. This is the same mentality which 
allows Greeks to rationalize that Cyprus is a Greek Island. No 
history book shows that it ever was. It belonged to the Ottoman 
Turks 'lock, stock and barrel' for a period of well over 300 
years. In fact, prior to the Turks' acquisition of it, following
bloody naval battles with the Venetians in 1570 AD, the
island of Cyprus belonged, invariably, to several nations:
The Assyrians, the Sumerians, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians,
the Ottoman Turks, of course in that order, owned it as 
their territory. But, it has never been the possession
of the government of Greece - not even for one day - in the 
history of the world. 

The problems in Cyprus have their origin in decades of 
oppression of the Turkish population by the Greek Cypriot 
officials and their violation of the co-founder status of 
the Turks set out in the constitution. The coup d'etat 
engineered by Greece in 1974 to execute a final solution 
to the Turkish problem was the savage blow that invoked 
Turkiye's intervention. Turkiye intervened reluctantly and 
only as a last resort after exhausting all other avenues 
consulting with Britain and Greece as the other two signatories 
to the treaty to protect the integrity of Cyprus. There simply 
was not any expansionist motivation in the Turkish action at 
all. This is in dramatic contrast to the Greek motivation which 
was openly expansionist, stated as 'Enosis,' union with Greece. 
Since the creation of independent Cyprus in 1960, the Turkish 
population, although smaller, legally had status as the co-founder
of the republic with the Greek population.

The Greek Cypriots, with the support of 'Enosis'-minded
Greeks in the mainland, have consistently ignored that
status and portrayed the Island as a Greek island with
a minority population of Turks. The Turks of Cyprus are
not a minority in a Greek Republic and they found the
only way they could show that was to assert their 
autonomy in a separate republic.

Turkiye is not satisfied with the status quo. She would
rather not be involved with the island. But, given the
dismal record of brutal Greek oppression of the Turkish
population in Cyprus, she simply cannot leave the fate
of the island's Turks in the hands of the Greeks until
the Turkish side is satisfied with whatever accord
the two communities finally reach to guarantee that
history will not repeat itself to rob Turkish Cypriots
of their rights, liberties and their very lives.

Serdar Argic

                     'This war quickly developed into one of extermination. 
                      We closed the roads and mountain passes that might 
                      serve as ways of escape for the Tartars [Turks] and 
                      then proceeded in the work of extermination.'
                                                       (Ohanus Appressian)

Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,soc.rights.human