Turkish Cypriots

Turkish CypriotsorCypriot Turks(Turkish:Kıbrıs TürkleriorKıbrıslı Türkler;Greek:Τουρκοκύπριοι,romanized:Tourkokýprioi) are ethnicTurksoriginating fromCyprus.  Turkish Cypriots are mainlySunni Muslims. Following theOttomanconquest of the island in 1571, about 30,000 Turkish settlers were given land once they arrived in Cyprus.Additionally, many of the island's local Christians converted to Islam during the early years of Ottoman rule.Nonetheless, the influx of mainly Muslim settlers to Cyprus continued intermittently until the end of the Ottoman period.Today, whileNorthern Cyprusis home to a significant part of the Turkish Cypriot population, the majority of Turkish Cypriots live abroad, forming theTurkish Cypriot diaspora. This diaspora came into existence after the Ottoman Empire transferred the control of the island to theBritish Empire, as many Turkish Cypriots emigrated primarily toTurkeyand theUnited Kingdomfor political and economic reasons.
Standard Turkishis the official language of Northern Cyprus. The vernacular spoken by Turkish Cypriots isCypriot Turkish, which has been influenced byCypriot Greek, as well asEnglish.
Although there was no settled Muslim population in Cyprus prior to the Ottoman conquest of 1570–71, some Ottoman Turks were captured and carried off as prisoners to Cyprus in the year 1400 during Cypriot raids in the Asiatic and Egyptian coasts.Some of these captives accepted or were forced to convert to Christianity and were baptized; however, there were also some Turkish slaves who remained unbaptized.By 1425, some of these slaves helped theMamlukearmy to gain access toLimassol Castle.Despite the release of some of the captives, after the payment of ransoms, most of the baptized Turks continued to remain on the island. The medieval Cypriot historianLeontios Machairasrecalled that the baptized Turks were not permitted to leaveNicosiawhen the Mamlukes approached the city after the battle ofKhirokitiain 1426.According to ProfessorCharles Fraser Beckingham, "there must therefore have been some Cypriots, at least nominally Christian, who were of Turkish, Arab, or Egyptian origin."
By 1488, the Ottomans made their first attempt at conquering Cyprus when SultanBayezid IIsent a fleet to conquerFamagusta. However, the attempt failed due to the timely intervention of a Venetian fleet.The Queen of Cyprus,Caterina Cornaro, was forced to relinquish her crown to theRepublic of Venicein 1489. In the same year, Ottoman ships were seen off the coast ofKarpasand the Venetians began to strengthen the fortifications of the island.By 1500, coastal raids by Ottoman vessels resulted in the heavy loss of Venetian fleets, forcing Venice to negotiate a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire in 1503. However, by May 1539Suleiman Idecided to attackLimassolbecause the Venetians had been sheltering pirates who continuously attacked Ottoman ships. Limassol stayed under Ottoman control until a peace treaty was signed in 1540. Cyprus continued to be a haven for pirates who interrupted the safe passage of Ottoman trade ships and Muslim pilgrims sailing toMeccaandMedina.By 1569, pirates captured the Ottomandefterdar(treasurer) of Egypt, andSelim IIdecided to safeguard the sea route fromConstantinopletoAlexandriaby conquering the island and clearing the eastern Mediterranean of all enemies in 1570–71.
The basis for the emergence of a sizeable and enduring Turkish community in Cyprus emerged whenOttomantroops landed on the island in mid-May 1570 andseized it within a yearfromVenetianrule.The post-conquest period established a significant Muslim community which consisted of soldiers from the campaign who remained behind and further settlers who were brought fromAnatoliaas part of a traditional Ottoman population policy.There were also new converts to Islam on the island during the early years of Ottoman rule.
In addition to documented settlement of Anatolian peasants and craftsmen, as well as the arrival of soldiers,decreeswere also issued banishing Anatolian tribes, "undesirable" persons, and members of various "troublesome" Muslim sects, principally those officially classified asheretical.This influx of mainly Muslim settlers to Cyprus continued intermittently until the end of the Ottoman period.
Some Turkish Cypriots are descendants ofCrypto-Christians, a phenomenon that was not uncommon in the Ottoman Empire given its multi-faith character. In Cyprus, many Latins andMaronites, as well as Greeks, converted to Islam at different points during Ottoman rule for a number of reasons ranging from collectively avoiding heavy taxation to ending an individual woman unhappy marriage.Their artificial embrace of Islam and their secret maintaining of Christianity led this group of crypto-Christians to be known in Greek asLinobambakior the cotton-linen sect as they changed religion to curry favour with Ottoman officials during the day but practiced Catholicism at night.In 1636 the conditions for the Christians became intolerable and certain Christians decided to become Muslims. According to Palmieri (1905) the Maronites who became Muslims lived mainly in the Nicosia District and despite the fact that the Maronites turned to Muslims they never gave up their Christian faith and beliefs hoping to become Christians. This is why they baptized their children according to the Christian faith, but they also practiced circumcision. They also gave their children two names, a Muslim and a Christian one.Many of the villages and neighbouring areas accepted as Turkish Cypriot estates, were formerly Linobambaki activity centers. These include:
By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, approximately 30,000 Muslims were living in Cyprus, comprising about 35% of the total population. The fact that Turkish was the main language spoken by the Muslims of the island is a significant indicator that the majority of them were either Turkish-speaking Anatolians or otherwise from a Turkic background.Throughout the Ottoman rule, the demographic ratio between Christian "Greeks" and Muslim "Turks" fluctuated constantly.During 1745–1814, the Muslim Turkish Cypriots constituted the majority on the island compared to the Christian Greek Cypriots, being up to 75% of the total island population.However, by 1841, Turks made up 27% of the island's population.One of the reasons for this decline is because the Turkish community were obliged to serve in theOttoman armyfor years, usually away from home, very often losing their lives in the endless wars of the Ottoman Empire.Another reason for the declining population was because of the emigration trend of some 15,000 Turkish Cypriots to Anatolia in 1878, when the Ottoman Turks handed over the administration of the island to Britain.
By 1878, during theCongress of Berlin, under the terms of the Anglo-OttomanCyprus Convention, the Ottoman Turks had agreed to assign Cyprus toBritainto occupy and rule, though not to possess assovereign territory.According to the first British census of Cyprus, in 1881, 95% of the island's Muslims spoke Turkish as their mother tongue.As of the 1920s, the percentage ofGreek-speaking Muslims had dropped from 5%, in 1881, to just under 2% of the total Muslim population.During the opening years of the twentieth centuryOttomanismbecame an ever more popular identity held by the Cypriot Muslim intelligentsia, especially in the wake of theYoung Turk Revolutionof 1908. Increasing numbers ofYoung Turkswho had turned against SultanAbdul Hamid IIsought refuge in Cyprus. A rising class of disgruntled intellectuals in the island's main urban centres gradually began to warm to the ideas of positivism, freedom and modernization.Spurred on by the rising calls for "enosis", the union withGreece, emanating fromGreek Cypriots, an initially hesitant "Turkism" was also starting to appear in certain newspaper articles and to be heard in the political debates of the local intelligentsia of Cyprus.In line with the changes introduced in the Ottoman Empire after 1908, the curricula of Cyprus's Muslim schools, such as the "Idadi", were also altered to incorporate moresecularteachings with increasinglyTurkish nationalistundertones. Many of these graduates in due course ended up as teachers in the growing number of urban and rural schools that had begun to proliferate across the island by the 1920s.
In 1914, theOttoman Empirejoined theFirst World Waragainst theAllied Forcesand Britain annexed the island. Cyprus's Muslim inhabitants were officially asked to choose between adopting either British nationality or retaining their Ottoman subject status; about 4,000–8,500 Muslims decided to leave the island and move to Turkey.Following its defeat in World War I, the Ottoman Empire were faced with theGreco-Turkish War (1919–1922)whereby the Greek incursion into Anatolia aimed at claiming what Greece believed to be historically Greek territory.For the Ottoman Turks of Cyprus, already fearing the aims of enosis-seeking Greek Cypriots, reports of atrocities committed by the Greeks against the Turkish populations in Anatolia, and the GreekOccupation of Smyrna, produced further fears for their own future. Greek forces were routed in 1922 under the leadership ofMustafa Kemal Atatürkwho, in 1923, proclaimed the new Republic ofTurkeyand renounced irredentist claims to former Ottoman territories beyond the Anatolian heartland. Muslims in Cyprus were thus excluded from the nation-building project, though many still heeded Atatürk's call to join in the establishment of the new nation-state, and opted forTurkish citizenship. Between 1881 and 1927 approximately 30,000 Turkish Cypriots emigrated to Turkey.
The 1920s was to prove a critical decade in terms of stricter ethno-religious compartments; hence, Muslim Cypriots who remained on the island gradually embraced the ideology ofTurkish nationalismdue to the impact of theKemalist Revolution.At its core were the Kemalist values ofsecularism,modernizationandwesternization; reforms such as the introduction of the newTurkish alphabet, adoption of western dress and secularization, were adopted voluntarily by Muslim Turkish Cypriots, who had been prepared for such changes not just by theTanzimatbut also by several decades of British rule.Many of those Cypriots who until then had still identified themselves primarily as Muslims began now to see themselves principally as Turks in Cyprus.
By 1950, aCypriot Enosis referendumin which 95.7% of Greek Cypriot voters supported a fight aimed atenosis, the union of Cyprus withGreecewere led by an armed organisation, in 1955, calledEOKAbyGeorgios Grivaswhich aimed at bringing down British rule and uniting the island of Cyprus with Greece. Turkish Cypriots had always reacted immediately against the objective of enosis; thus, the 1950s saw many Turkish Cypriots who were forced to flee from their homes.In 1958, Turkish Cypriots set up their own armed group calledTurkish Resistance Organisation(TMT) and by early 1958, the first wave of armed conflict between the two communities began; a few hundred Turkish Cypriots left their villages and quarters in the mixed towns and never returned.
By 16 August 1960, the island of Cyprus became an independent state, theRepublic of Cyprus, with power sharing between the two communities under the1960 Zurich agreements, with Britain, Greece and Turkey as Guarantor Powers. ArchbishopMakarios IIIwas elected as president by the Greek Cypriots andDr. Fazıl Küçükwas elected as vice-president by the Turkish Cypriots. However, in December 1963, in the events known as "Bloody Christmas",when Makarios III attempted to modify the Constitution, Greek Cypriots initiated a military campaign against the Turkish Cypriots and began to attack Turkish inhabited villages; by early 1964, the Turkish Cypriots started to withdraw into armedenclaveswhere the Greek Cypriots blockaded them, resulting in some 25,000 Turkish Cypriots becoming refugees, or internally "displaced persons".This resulted in the UN peacekeeping force,UNFICYP, being stationed on the island as well as an external migration trend of thousands more Turkish Cypriots to the United Kingdom, Turkey, North America and Australia.With the rise to power of theGreek military junta, a decade later, in 1974, a group of right-wingGreek nationalists,EOKA B, who supported the union of Cyprus with Greece,launched a putsch.This action precipitated theTurkish invasion of Cyprus,which led to the capture of the present-day territory of Northern Cyprus the following month, after a ceasefire collapsed. The Turkish invasion resulted in the occupation of some 37% of the island in the north.During the invasion of the island, a number ofatrocitiesagainst the Turkish Cypriot community were committed; such as theMaratha, Santalaris and Aloda massacreby the Greek Cypriot paramilitary organisation EOKA B. After the Turkish invasion and the ensuing 1975 Vienna agreements, 60,000 Turkish Cypriots who lived in the south of the island fled to the north.The 1974–1975 movement was strictly organised by the Provisional Turkish Administration who tried to preserve village communities intact.
In 1983, the Turkish Cypriots declared their own state in the north, theTurkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which remains internationally unrecognised, except by Turkey.In 2004, a referendum for the unification of the island, the "Annan Plan", was accepted by 65% of Turkish Cypriots but rejected by 76% of Greek Cypriots.
The Turkish Cypriots areTurkish-speaking, regard themselves assecularMuslims, and take pride in theirOttomanheritage.However, Turkish Cypriots differentiate themselves from mainlanders, especially from the religiously conservative settlers who have come to Cyprus more recently, but their strong connection to Turkey is nonetheless undisputed.Hence, the Turkish Cypriot identity is based on their ethnic Turkish roots and links to mainland Turkey, but also to their Cypriot character with cultural and linguistic similarities with Greek Cypriots.Their culture is heavily based on family ties linked to parents, siblings, and relatives; one's neighbourhood is also considered important as emphasis is given on helping those in need.Thus, much of their lives revolves around social activities, and food is a central feature of gatherings.Turkish Cypriot folk dances, music, and art are also integral parts of their culture.
The majority of Turkish Cypriots (99%) areSunni Muslims.However, thesecularizingforce ofKemalismhas also exerted an impact on Turkish Cypriots.Religious practices are considered a matter of individual choice and many do not actively practice their religion.Alcohol is frequently consumed within the community and most Turkish Cypriot women do not cover their heads.Turkish Cypriot males are generallycircumcisedat a young age in accordance with religious beliefs, although, this practice appears more related to custom and tradition than to powerful religious motivation.
The social/religious phenomenon ofcrypto-Christianitywas observed in Cyprus, as in other parts of the Ottoman Empire. The crypto-Christians of Cyprus were known as Linobambaki (=of linen and cotton). They are mentioned by foreign travellers as Turks who are secretly Greeks, observing the Greek Orthodoxfasting(Turner 1815), drinking wine, eating pork and often taking Christian wives.
TheTurkish languagewas introduced to Cyprus with the Ottoman conquest in 1571 and became the politically dominant, prestigious language, of the administration.In the post-Ottoman period, Cypriot Turkish was relatively isolated from standard Turkish and had strong influences by theCypriot Greekdialect. The condition of coexistence with the Greek Cypriots led to a certain bilingualism whereby Turkish Cypriots' knowledge ofGreekwas important in areas where the two communities lived and worked together.
According to Prof. C. F. Beckingham (1957), in Cyprus religious and linguistic divisions do not always coincide. There were "Turkish",i.e. Muslim villages in which the normal language was Greek. Among them were Lapithiou, Platanisto, Ayios SimeonBeckingham said that this phenomenon has not been adequately investigated.The existence of Greek-speaking Muslims is also mentioned in subsequent works.Ozan Gülle (2014), "it is historically well documented that Turkish Cypriots showed large differences in their frequency of communication in Cypriot Greek [...]: On one end of the spectrum are Turkish Cypriots who were probably monolingual Cypriot Greek speakers or had only little competency in Turkish, ...".
The linguistic situation changed radically in 1974, following thedivision of Cyprusinto a Greek south and a Turkish north. Today, the Cypriot Turkish dialect is being exposed to increasing standard Turkish through immigration from Turkey, new mass media, and new educational institutions.Nonetheless, a Turkish speaker familiar with the Cypriot Turkish variety of Turkish can still easily identify a member of the community from one who is not.Although many Turkish Cypriots command standard Turkish as well, they generally choose to use their own variety in particular contexts to affirm their identity. Most commonly, these differences are in pronunciation, but they extend tolexiconand grammatical structures as well.There are many words used by Turkish Cypriots that originate in the particular historical circumstances of the island, includingEnglishand Greek, and therefore have no precedent in standard Turkish. There are also words used by the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities which are authentically Cypriot in origin.
Folk music and dancing is an integral part of social life among Turkish Cypriots. Traditional Turkish Cypriot folk dances can be divided into five categories:Karsilamas,Sirtos,Zeybeks,Ciftetellis/Arabiyes, and Topical Dances (such as Orak, Kozan, Kartal and Topal). The folk dancing groups usually have performances during national festivals, weddings, Turkish nights at hotels and within tourism areas.
The 1960 census of Cyprus reported the Turkish Cypriot population as 18% of the total population. The figure was challenged during a 1978 debate in theBritish ParliamentwhenLord Spensstated that there were 400,000 Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus, at least one-fifth of the population.
According to the 2006 Northern Cyprus Census, there were 145,443 Turkish Cypriots born on the island who were resident in Northern Cyprus (TRNC).Of the Cypriot-born population, 120,007 had both parents born in Cyprus; 12,628 had one of their parents born in Cyprus and the other born in another country. Thus, 132,635 Turkish Cypriots had at least one parent born in Cyprus.
According to the 2011 Northern Cyprus Census, there were 160,207 Turkish Cypriots born on the island who were resident in North Cyprus (TRNC).
There was significant Turkish Cypriot emigration from the island during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mainly to Great Britain, Australia, and Turkey. Emigration from Cyprus has mainly been for economical and political reasons. According to the TRNC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2001, 500,000 Turkish Cypriots were living in Turkey; 200,000 in Great Britain; 40,000 in Australia; some 10,000 in North America; and 5,000 in other countries.
A more recent estimate, in 2011, by theHome Affairs Committeestates that there are now 300,000 Turkish Cypriots living in the United Kingdomthough Turkish Cypriots themselves claim that the British-Turkish Cypriot community has reached 400,000.Furthermore, recent estimates suggest that there are between 60,000 and 120,000 Turkish Cypriots living in Australia,5,000 in the United States, 2,000 in Germany, 1,800 in Canada, 1,600 in New Zealand, and a smaller community in South Africa.
The first mass migration of Turkish Cypriots to Turkey occurred in 1878 when theOttoman Empireleased Cyprus to Great Britain. The flow of Turkish Cypriot emigration to Turkey continued in the aftermath of theFirst World War, and gained its greatest velocity in the mid-1920s. Economic motives played an important part of the continued migration to Turkey because conditions for the poor in Cyprus during the 1920s were especially harsh. Thereafter, Turkish Cypriots continued to migrate to Turkey during theSecond World Warin the 1940s and during theCyprus conflictof the 1960s and 1970s.
Initially, enthusiasm to emigrate to Turkey was inflated by the euphoria that greeted the birth of the newly established Republic of Turkey and later of promises of assistance to Turks who emigrated. A decision taken by the Turkish Government at the end of 1925, for instance, noted that the Turks of Cyprus had, according to theTreaty of Lausanne, the right to emigrate to the republic, and therefore, families that so emigrated would be given a house and sufficient land.The precise number of those who emigrated to Turkey is a matter that remains unknown.The press in Turkey reported in mid-1927 that of those who had opted for Turkish nationality, 5,000–6,000 Turkish Cypriots had already settled in Turkey. However, many Turkish Cypriots had already emigrated even before the rights accorded to them under the Treaty of Lausanne had come into force.
Metin Heper and Bilge Criss have summarized the migration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as follows:
St. John-Jones has analyzed the migration of Turkish Cypriots during early British rule further:
The Turkish Cypriot population in Turkey continued to increase at fluctuating speeds as a result of theSecond World War(1939–1945).According to Ali Suat Bilge, taking into consideration the mass migrations of 1878, the First World War, the 1920s early Turkish Republican era, and the Second World War, overall, a total of approximately 100,000 Turkish Cypriots had left the island for Turkey between 1878 and 1945.By 31 August 1955, a statement by Turkey's Minister of State and Acting Foreign Minister,Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, at the London Conference on Cyprus, estimated that the total Turkish Cypriot population (including descendants) in Turkey had reached 300,000:
By 2001 the TRNC Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimated that 500,000 Turkish Cypriots were living in Turkey.
Turkish Cypriots who remained inCyprusduring the early twentieth century were faced with the harsh economic conditions of theGreat Depressionunder British rule. Consequently, many families in the poorest villages, facing debt and starvation, married off their daughters toArabsmainly inBritish Palestine, and other Arab countries,in the hope that they would have a better life.Abride pricewas normally given by the groom to the family of the girls, usually about £10–20, enough to buy several acres of land at the time, as part of the marriage arrangements.Such payments had not been part of Cypriot tradition, and Cypriots typically describe the girls in these forced marriages as having been "sold"; Arabs however, often object to this characterization.Mostly between the ages of 11–18, the majority of the girls lost contact with their families in Cyprus, and while some had successful marriages and families, others found themselves little more than domestic servants, abused, or ended up working in brothels.
The marriages were sometimes arranged by brokers, who presented the prospective husbands as wealthy doctors and engineers. However,Neriman Cahit, in her bookBrides for Sale, found that in reality many of these men had mediocre jobs or were already married with children. Unaware of these realities, Turkish Cypriot families continued to send their daughters to Palestine until the 1950s. Cahit estimates that within 30 years up to 4,000 Turkish Cypriot women were sent to Palestine to be married to Arab men.
In recent years second and third generation Palestinians of Turkish Cypriot origin have been applying for Cypriot citizenship; several hundred Palestinians have already been successful in obtaining Cypriot passports.
In 2012 Yeliz Shukri and Stavros Papageorghiou secured financial support for the making of a film on the subject of the "Forgotten Brides".The documentary, entitledMissing Fetine, was released in 2018, and follows the search of Australian-born Turkish Cypriot Pembe Mentesh for her long-lost great-aunt, while investigating the fate of these Turkish Cypriot women.
Turkish Cypriot migration to the United Kingdom began in the early 1920s, theBritish Empirehaving formally annexed Cyprus in 1914, with the residents ofBritish-ruled Cyprusbecoming subjects ofthe Crown.Some arrived as students and tourists, while others left the island due to the harsh economic and political life during the British colony of Cyprus.Emigration to the United Kingdom continued to increase when theGreat Depressionof 1929 broughteconomic depressionto Cyprus, with unemployment and low wages being a significant issue.During theSecond World War, the number of Turkish run cafes increased from 20 in 1939 to 200 in 1945 which created a demand for more Turkish Cypriot workers.Throughout the 1950s, Turkish Cypriots emigrated for economic reasons and by 1958 their number was estimated to be 8,500.Their numbers continued to increase each year as rumours about immigration restrictions appeared in much of the Cypriot media.
The 1950s also saw the arrival of many Turkish Cypriots to the United Kingdom due to political reasons; many began to flee as a result of theEOKAstruggle and its aim of "enosis".Once the ethnic cleansing broke out in 1963, and some 25,000 Turkish Cypriots became internally displaced, accounting to about a fifth of their population.The political and economic unrest in Cyprus, after 1964, sharply increased the number of Turkish Cypriot immigrants to the United Kingdom.Many of these early migrants worked in the clothing industry in London, where both men and women could work together; many worked in thetextile industryas sewing was a skill which the community had already acquired in Cyprus.Turkish Cypriots were concentrated mainly in the north-east of London and specialised in the heavy-wear sector, such as coats and tailored garments.This sector offered work opportunities where poor knowledge of the English language was not a problem and where self-employment was a possibility.
Once the Turkish Cypriots declared their own state, theTurkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the division of the island led to an economicembargo against the Turkish Cypriotsby the Greek Cypriot controlled Republic of Cyprus. This had the effect of depriving the Turkish Cypriots of foreign investment, aid and export markets; thus, it caused theTurkish Cypriot economyto remain stagnant and undeveloped.Due to these economic and political issues, an estimated 130,000 Turkish Cypriots have emigrated from Northern Cyprus since its establishment to the United Kingdom.
Following geological separation of Cyprus from Anatolia, the first people to live in Cyprus came from Anatolia.Before Ottoman rule, Turks came from both Anatolia and Egypt.According to İsmail Bozkurt, the majority of Turkish Cypriots are of Yörük/Türkmen origin from Anatolia, who came after theOttoman conquest of the island in 1571.
According to genetic studies, there are close connections between modern Anatolian and Cypriot populations.A 2016 study, which focused onpatrilineal ancestry, found that among the sampled Near Eastern and Southeastern European populations, Turkish Cypriots had the shortest genetic distances with those from Cyprus, Turkey, Lebanon, Greece, and Sicily.
A 2017 study found that both Turkish Cypriots' and Greek Cypriots' patrilineal ancestry derives primarily from a single pre-Ottoman local gene pool. The frequency of total haplotypes sharedbetween Turkish and Greek Cypriots is 7-8%, with analysis showing that none of these are found in Turkey, thus not supporting a Turkish origin for the shared haplotypes. No shared haplotypes were observed between Greek Cypriots and mainland Turkish populations, while total haplotypes shared between Turkish Cypriots and mainland Turks is 3%. Turkish Cypriots also share haplotypes with North Africans to a lesser extent, and have Eastern Eurasian haplogroups (H, C, N, O, Q) – attributed to the arrival of theOttomans– at a frequency of ~5.5%. Both Cypriot groups show close genetic affinity toCalabrian(southern Italy) andLebanesepatrilineages. The study states that the genetic affinity between Calabrians and Cypriots can be explained as a result of a common ancient Greek (Achaean) genetic contribution, while Lebanese affinity can be explained through several migrations that took place from coastal Levant to Cyprus from the Neolithic (early farmers), the Iron Age (Phoenicians), and the Middle Ages (Maronites and other Levantine settlers during the Frankish era). The predominant haplogroups among both Turkish and Greek Cypriots are J2a-M410, E-M78, and G2-P287.
In a 2019genome-widestudy, Cypriot samples grouped with people from the Levant (Druze, Lebanese and Syrians) and Armenia among the sampled populations fromEurasiaandAfrica, usingcluster analysisbased on haplotype-sharing patterns.
Homozygousbeta thalassemiain a number of at-risk populations (Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Greeks, Continental Italians and Sardinians) has been prevented at the population level by programmes based on carrier screening, genetic counselling and prenatal diagnosis.
Turkish Cypriot representatives ofParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe(PACE) elected in the Assembly of 1960 partnership government: 1961–1964: Halit Ali Riza,1961–1963: Umit Suleyman,1963–1964: Burhan Nalbantoglu.
Turkish Cypriot representatives ofPACEelected in theAssemblyofNorthern Cyprus: 
(TCs have two seats in PACE; the parties of elected members are shown) 2005–2007: CTPÖzdil Nami; UBPHüseyin Özgürgün;27.01.2011 CTP Mehmet Caglar; UBP Ahmet Eti;04.12.2013 CTP Mehmet Caglar, UBPTahsin Ertuğruloğlu