The European Commission’s 2007 Progress Report relating to Turkey’s EU accession process, released on Nov. 6, seems to have been envenomed by Greek Cypriots and under the shadow of the Greek world; the Hellenic peoples, both Greek Cyprus and Greece.
A draft released on Oct. 26, did not mention anything about the July 8 Gambari implications.
The Greek Cypriot commissioner had to cancel a trip to the US and return to Brussels to join the meeting of EU commissioners held the following week. His first target was to — one way or another — im-pose the July 8 Gambari implications onto the report and the commis-sion into corroboration, hiding behind his partnership rights.
His second target was to bridge a connection between the July 8 Gambari Implications and the Additional Protocol of the 1964 Ankara Agreement, which is a big headache for the EU.
The EU member states finally realized they were being misled by the Greek Cypriots and that it was a big mistake to let the Greek Cy-priot state to enter the European Union before solving the 44-year dis-pute over the island — which was initiated by the Greek Cypriots on Dec. 21, 1963, known in Cypriot history as “Bloody Christmas.”
As the result of the strong opposition of the Greek Cypriot com-missioner during the meetings regarding the Cyprus issue and the Additional Protocol, eight of 35 negotiation chapters were suspended and the commission was once again forced to put emphasis on the implementation of the Additional Protocol for Greek Cyprus.
Turkey has become fed up with the crises brought about through the candidacy process, such as the suspension of eight negotiation chapters after Turkey refused to open its ports and harbors to Greek Cyprus.
It is unfair that the report, which seems completely Greek-sided, mentions and refers to Turkey’s continued refusal to open its ports and airspace to Greek Cypriot trade, but does not mention the unjust political, economic, cultural, social, sporting and trade embargos which still stand firm irrespective of the EU “Direct Trade and Financial Aid Regulations” dated April 26, 2004 and the commitments made after the “yes” votes cast by Turkish Cypriots in the Annan plan referendum on April 24, 2004.
Greeks hold the advantage when one takes into consideration Turkey’s difficult negotiations with the EU. The submission of unac-ceptable proposals to the Turkish side by the Greek Cypriots has be-come common practice.
The lack of fulfillment of promises to lift the embargos has created distrust of the EU by the Turkish Cypriots and the Turkish people, as well as by the Turkish Cypriot and Turkish politicians.
It is obvious that Cyprus, one way or another, will remain a huge obstacle in Turkey’s accession talks.
With regard to Cyprus, the commission and the EU as a whole should not have any illusions that anything will change soon. The re-port criticizes Turkey’s continual refusal to open its ports and airspace to Greek Cypriot trade but it is highly unlikely that Turkey will change its position until the EU honors the commitments it made to Turkish Cypriots in 2004 to ease the isolation.
For the past couple of decades Turkish Cypriots have been asked to believe that Greek Cypriots have changed, but they see no evidence of that. From Dec. 22, 1963 to July 20, 1974 — 11 long years — Turkish Cypriots were confined to an “open-air prison” by the Greek Cyprus government headed by Makarios: they were not allowed freedom of movement, property or education rights or the right to a normal life. No jobs, no money, no medicine, no milk, no water and no future. And now the unjust embargos held against Turkish Cypriots since 1974 still stand firm.
This creates tension and animosity and is clear evidence that the Greek Cypriots have no genuine wish for reconciliation with Turkish Cypriots. Moreover, their embargo has no authority under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
It is evident from the actions and remarks of the Greek Cypriots that they would not accept a settlement model based on the sharing of power with the Turkish Cypriots, despite calls from the UN secretary-general, the EU and the international community.
Greek Cypriots are hiding behind the Gambari implications, to stretch the negotiations concerning the Cyprus issue to a date which seems to be decades away.
The commission should write a similar report on the progress made by the EU towards Turkey’s EU accession process, commitments given to Turkish Cypriots and the unjust embargos imposed on them.
It seems that EU can no longer be a fair and objective arbitrator in the Cyprus standoff, after incorporating Greek Cyprus in May 2004 and forcibly becoming a one-sided party to the problem.
It is a crystal-clear fact on the island of Cyprus that there have been “two peoples and two religions” for the past half of a millennium. In addition to this, “two states and two governments” have existed for the past half century, since Dec. 21, 1963. On Dec. 21, 1963, Makarios unleashed his secretly formed armed forces against the Turkish people. Greece was hand in glove with Archbishop Makarios III in this new conspiracy to destroy the Republic of Cyprus.
Christmas of 1963 saw a Greek Cypriot militia attack Turkish Cypriot communities across the island, killing many men, women and children.
This atrocious night is known as “Bloody Christmas” in Turkish Cypriot history, and over 600 innocent Turkish Cypriot men, women and children were ruthlessly slaughtered in one single night.
Around 270 mosques, shrines and other places of worship were desecrated. The constitution became unworkable because of the refusal on the part of the Greek Cypriots to fulfill the obligations to which they had agreed.
From Dec. 22, 1963 to July 20, 1974 — 11 long years, called the “Dark Era” in Turkish Cypriot history — Turkish Cypriots were confined to an “open-air prison” by the Greek Cypriot government headed by Archbishop Makarios III: They were not allowed freedom of movement, property or education rights or the right to a normal life. No jobs, no money, no medicine, no milk, no water and no future.
During these dark ages, Turkish Cypriots formed their own ad-ministration under the leadership of Dr. Fazil Küçük and Rauf R. Denktaş.
The bi-national republic that was envisioned by past treaties ceased to exist after December 1963. The Greek Cypriot wing of the “partnership” state took over the title “Government of Cyprus” and the Turkish Cypriots, who had never accepted the seizure of power, set up a Turkish administration to run their own affairs.
The UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), with the mis-sion of bringing peace to the island, was sent to the island in March 1964.
They could not stop the clashes, and inhumane Greek attacks on Turkish Cypriots continued. Some 20,000 Greek troops arrived on Cyprus clandestinely to back up the Greek National Guards in their mission to massacre the Turkish Cypriots.
The goal of the Greek Cypriot leadership under Makarios was to force all Turkish Cypriots off the island, either by brute force or by the implementation of inhumane living conditions.
But Makarios’ pace of ethnic cleansing of Turkish Cypriots was not fast enough for the junta generals in Greece, and this led to the Greek Cypriot National Guards overthrowing Makarios in a coup d’etat on July 15, 1974, under the command of Greek officers and with the support of Greek troops from Greece.
F
rom this point on, things changed dramatically on the island. Turkey had to intervene to save the lives of Turkish Cypriots since the speed of the genocide would have accelerated after the declaration of the “Cyprus Hellenic Republic” on July 16, 1974, by notorious human butcher and right-wing Greek operative Nicos Sampson, installed by the Greek junta as president of the unilaterally declared new republic.
After four days, on July 20, 1974, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) stepped in to save the lives of the Turkish Cypriots.
Since the Turkish military intervention, no clashes between the two peoples of Cyprus have occurred and there is a very high probabil-ity that they won’t as long as the TSK stays in the north. Or in other words until the Greek Cypriots dare to attack Turkish Cypriots again as they did during the Dark Era, 1964 to 1974.
The “two democracies, two states, two languages and two reli-gions” reality on the island was officially mentioned by Turkish Presi-dent Abdullah Gül on Sept. 18, 2007 during his very first trip abroad since taking office, to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TCKK). He has called on the international community to take this into account.
It is a crystal-clear fact on the island that “two democracies, two states, two languages and two religions” coexist. A sustainable solution has to be built on this reality.
The Middle East has acquired immense strategic value as one of the determining fulcrums in the global balance of power due to its being the world’s largest known storehouse of low-cost energy supplies. The region’s geopolitical importance, the kaleidoscopic nature of politics among its states, the presence of volatile social and political forces within them and the interference of world superpowers all insure that the region will remain a potentially explosive source of tension for years.
Emboldened by its military strength after World War II, Moscow prepared to carve up its southern neighbors. It demanded territorial concessions and control of the Bosporus from Turkey and refused to withdraw from northern Iran, which it had occupied in 1941. Turkey and Iran rebuffed Soviet coercive diplomacy with the support of the United States and became key allies in the American effort to contain Soviet expansion.
The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) was a defense alliance between Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Great Britain. Originally named the Baghdad Pact, the name was changed when the Iraqi revolution led Iraq to withdraw in 1959. The United States had observer status in the alliance but was not a party to the treaty. The fall of the shah removed the American shield from Iran, sounded the death knell for the anti-Soviet CENTO alliance and sailed Iran towards new horizons.
Now the same faith is on the road for Turkey. The measureless and injudicious backup given by the occupying power in Iraq — the US government — to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and to Massoud Barzani, the former tribal leader of the Iraqi Kurds and now the so-called leader of the Iraqi Kurdish region.
Turkey, taking into consideration the ongoing assaults by the PKK terrorists in the southeastern regions and the measureless backup given by US government to Iraqi Kurds, has drawn up a new strategic alliance policy that weakens ties with the US and strengthens relations with Iran and Syria, their millennium-long neighbors.
The US has failed to keep its promise to Turkey to confront the PKK. Turkey now feels that it has no choice but to attack the PKK’s sanctuaries in northern Iraq together with Iran.
Iran is also suffering from similar assaults originating from the same terrorist group located in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq under the name of Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK).
The US and Iran are increasingly at odds over a range of issues, and Turkey has stood nearby the US as an old and devoted ally for the past 57 years.
Surprisingly, US strategists seem to be pushing Turkey and Iran together to fight against violent Kurdish attacks or into an alliance to fight together against the common enemy in the region at the cost of losing Turkey as a faithful ally. The sympathy of Turkish people towards the US had fallen sharply over the past couple of years, and it will take decades for US to recover it.
It seems it is now mandatory for Turkey and Iran to form a com-mon cooperative ground in regard to common problems and interests. New and stronger cooperative action in the economic field by Turkey and Iran will play a major role in the eradication of the political distrust and concerns between the two countries. The parties have announced an upcoming doubling of the volume of their trade.
Both countries have already agreed on the elimination of the main source of discord: support for each other’s separatist and oppositional organizations. Iran has committed to adding the PKK to its list of “terrorist organizations.” Turkey has done the same concerning the Iranian group “Mojahedin Halk.”
The second stage is the escalation of high-level cooperation be-tween Turkey, Iran and Syria and this is moving forward, as well.
Aversion to American global policy, in particular to the actions of the US in Iraq, the common allies of Syria and Iran, and also shared economic interests, will lead to the merging of the political strategies of Russia and Turkey. Countries that were previously historical opponents will turn into partners in the creation of a new Eurasian coalition.
The final effect of the region’s aversion to American policies will be the formation of the “union of four:” Russia, Turkey, Iran and Syria. Of course, this rapprochement between Ankara, Moscow, Damascus and Teheran will definitely affect Washington’s position in the Middle East.
The assaults and the terrorist attacks on innocent Turkish people and the Turkish troops’ steady orientation toward the southeastern region of Turkey force us, the academics, to dig deeper into fact and reason.
The deeper we go, the more we’re faced with interesting docu-mentation and realities.
Just until a few years ago, Massoud Barzani, the current leader of the Iraqi Kurdish region, was just a tribal leader. The only way he could travel abroad was with a diplomatic passport issued by the Tur-kish government. Saddam never issued him a passport, nor was he treated as the leader of Iraqi Kurds by the then Iraqi government.
Taking into consideration the ongoing civil war and the backup given by the occupying power in Iraq — the US government — he is dreaming of an independent Kurdish government.
To fulfill his dreams he even drafted up a “Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region” on April 19, 2004, only three-and-a-half years ago.
The size of this constitution is 15 single-sided pages in a 10-point font, single spaced.
The most interesting part of this constitution is the “Preamble” or the “Foreword,” which naturally comes at the very beginning. The rea-soning of the constitution and the facts on establishing the “the Iraqi Kurdistan Region” are detailed in this preamble.
It reads as follows:
“The Kurds are an ancient people who have lived in their homeland of Kurdis-tan for thousands of years, a nation with all the attributes that entitle it to practice the right of self-determination similar to other nations and peoples of the world. This is a right that was recognized for the first time in Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points issued at the end of World War I and the principles of which have since become en-trenched in international law.
Despite the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres that recognized the right of self-determination in articles 62-64, international interests and political expediency prevented the Kurds from enjoying and practicing this right. In contradiction to what that the Treaty had offered, Southern Kurdistan was annexed in 1925 to the newly created state of Iraq, which had been created four years earlier in 1921, without consideration of the will of its people, although it was stipulated that officials of Kurdish origin should be appointed to the administration of their own land and that Kurdish should be the language of education, the courts and for all services rendered.”
The date and the treaty described — the Treaty of Sèvres, Aug. 10, 1920 — is a non-valid World War I treaty, which was never put into effect. This treaty was never signed or certified by Vahdettin, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire of that era, and never ratified by the par-liaments of the drafting states: France, the United Kingdom and Italy.
Barzani is taking into consideration this notorious treaty and re-lying on the occupying power in Iraq, the United States. He never thought of what would happen the day after United States goes home.
Just couple of days ago he dared to utter the very delicate ex-pression in diplomacy, “casus belli,” which means “cause for war,” if Turkey attempts a cross-border operation, without taking into consid-eration his position, arms, troops, economy and possible sanctions he could be forced to withstand.
“Casus belli” is considered a one-way street and doesn’t offer the option of backing down from the cause. Of course, this diplomatic condition is valid for strong and principled countries, not comedians.
Of course he had to retract it only 24 hours later, claiming that it was released by the press following a mistranslation.
Now he is playing rather an innocent game, which in the end may force him to abandon his clan by calling on the PKK to leave the region and to solve their dispute with the government of Turkey within Turkish territory.
The most interesting part is that if one day Barzani visits the ter-rorist leader Apo (the nickname of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan) in the same cell, although they claim they are of Kurdish origin, they won’t be able communicate.
The two Kurdish languages, Zaza and Kurmanji, are like Chinese and Spanish, meaning they have no common background; a Zaza-speaking Kurd cannot understand a Kurmanji-speaking one.
But the most interesting part is that Apo speaks none of them except Turkish. He even cannot speak Arabic. Some allegations say that he is of Armenian origin, named Artin Agopyan and not even a Kurd.
Terrorism, whether carried out individually or collectively, poses one of the greatest threats to international peace and security. Terror-ism violates fundamental human rights, particularly the right to life, and can have no justification under any circumstances. It is an evil that strikes at the very core of democracy and civil society as well as economic and social development.
Turkey was among the very first to join the global coalition that has been mobilized. Turkey is of the opinion that terrorism cannot be associated with any religion, culture, geography or ethnic group. Ter-rorist organizations exist everywhere in the world; therefore, the fight against terrorism is the common fight of the civilized world.
The European Union has included the separatist terrorist organi-zation the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in its list of recognized ter-rorist organizations.
In the Official Journal of European Union, COUNCIL COMMON POSITION 2006/380/CFSP dated May 29, 2006, updating Common Position 2001/931/CFSP on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism and repealing Common Position 2006/231/CFSP in second part of the annex, under the title “2. GROUPS AND ENTITIES” included the PKK as a terrorist organization, ranking 24th on the list as “24. Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), (a.k.a. KADEK; a.k.a. KONGRA-GEL)”
The EU member states proposed no support to individuals and organizations declared as terrorists and terrorist groups in this list.
The Greek Cypriot administration, contrary to this concept and list, have supported the PKK since 1976 and still stands behind them, giving all support possible in all aspects.
Recently, three protest meetings against Turkey took place in southern Greek Cyprus organized by the PKK office in Lefkosa (Nicosia).
One protest meeting was held in Lefkosa, another in Li-massol and the third in Paphos with the permission of the Greek Cypriot administration.
The Greek Cypriot-PKK connection was first established by Dr. Vassos Lyssarides, the honorary president of the socialist Greek Cypriot party the Movement of Social Democrats (EDEK) and the former speaker of the Greek Cypriot Parliament, right after the Turkish intervention of 1974, with the motto “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
In this context, the following actions realized by the Greek Cypriot administration demonstrate a firm support for the PKK:
• Two PKK Offices, Kurdistan National Liberation Front (ERNK), Kur-dish Democratic People’s Unions (YDK), Kurdistan Culture Associa-tion and terrorist camps were built in order to train PKK members.
• The Greek Orthodox Church invited the terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan and provided him with a significant amount of cash funding.
• The Greek Cypriot administration gave permission to gun smugglers to use the sea ports of south Cyprus as transit points for the guns destined for the PKK and the wounded PKK terrorists treated in Greek Cypriot hospitals.
• . There are allegations that the Greek Cypriot administration car-ried out those activities secretly after its accession to the EU, irres-pective of the above-mentioned terrorist group’s listing.
• Institutes and terrorists supporting the PKK received support from Greek Cypriot nongovernmental organizations and the Greek Cypriot administration in terms of material and political assistance.
• When the terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan was apprehended in Kenya he had a Greek Cypriot passport.
• Right after this incident, the House of Representatives of Greek Cy-prus made decisions that condemned the arrest of the head terrorist and declared the continuation for the support given to the PKK, which is still valid.
• The Greek Cypriot national policy is that “Turkey is the common enemy of the Kurds and Greeks” and therefore “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and the PKK should be supported in every way.
It is time for the EU to take the necessary legal steps against the Greek Cypriot administration for their support of an organization that sits on the official list of terrorist groups issued by the EU Council.
