Turkey has been getting a lot of attention recently. American foreign policymakers, among others, are beginning to realize that the United States cannot count on its ally Turkey in a pinch. But American surprise and dismay at Turkey's increasing petulance on the world stage and among its NATO peers reflects just how naive the U.S. has been in its interpretation of Turkish behavior over many decades. Turkey's unreliability as a NATO ally and its incompatibility with Western democratic values is well understood by those who have long suffered Turkish aggression in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey's failure to genuinely uphold the shared values of NATO makes it a weak link in the alliance. By design, NATO originated as a defensive political and military alliance for those countries engaged in the hostilities of WWII. Turkey, the largest NATO member not to have fought in WWII, was enlisted to reinforce defenses against the Soviet Union. Yet, in the summer of 1974, NATO member Turkey invaded and occupied more than one third of the island Republic of Cyprus. Coming at the height of the Cold War, and at a time of delicate relations between Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and the NATO alliance, Turkey's invasion of Cyprus risked war with NATO member Greece and a resultant rupturing of the NATO alliance.
Adding insult to injury, the weapons used by the Turkish military to invade Cyprus were those of its NATO benefactors, principally the United States. In 1975, the Congress imposed an arms embargo on Turkey for its offensive use of American weapons. Rather than fulfill its NATO obligations, or follow its legal obligations as demanded by Congress, Turkey retaliated by closing all American military installations on Turkish soil, and by severely restricting American access at two NATO bases. At that time, military installations in Turkey were deemed essential surveillance posts in the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union. Turkey refused to reopen these facilities until the U.S. lifted the arms embargo, signaling that its relationship with the United States was never more than a transactional one, rather than one rooted in a shared commitment to the rule of law, individual liberties, democracy, and collective Western security.
July 20th marks 36 years that the Turkish military has occupied Cyprus. In that time, neither the Republic of Cyprus nor its people have directed any aggression towards Turkey. In stark contrast, Turkey maintains an active colonization program where it is illegally resettling some 180,000 Anatolian Turks into the homes and possessions of the 200,000 Greek Cypriots it evicted from the occupied territories. The Turkish military is also systematically eradicating the Hellenic and Christian heritage from the occupied territories. All but five of the 500 Greek Orthodox Churches in the occupied territories have been looted, desecrated, or destroyed. To no avail, the international community, including the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice have all called on Turkey to honor its international obligations and cease and desist from these hostilities against the people of Cyprus.
The Republic of Cyprus is a full-fledged member of the European Union. Turkey seeks that status as well, but as a NATO member illegally occupying European Union soil, Turkey puts NATO and the EU at loggerheads. The result is that the EU and NATO are unable to cooperate in the consolidation of their economic and strategic interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey's ongoing occupation of Cyprus is compelling evidence that it has little interest in meeting the standards of individual liberties, human rights and religious tolerance shared by America and other democratic nations. Lacking the ties that bind, Turkey is apparently quite willing to jeopardize relations with its long-time allies. Witness its 2003 denial of the deployment of US forces along the Northern Iraq border and its recent vote in the U.N. against Iran sanctions.
The United States and its allies must call upon Turkey to abide by international law and meet its responsibilities as a dependable NATO partner. And on this, the 36th anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Cyprus, the United States should demand an immediate withdrawal of the 45,000 Turkish soldiers now occupying northern Cyprus. Until that occurs, policymakers in the White House and in the Congress must press the issue in every conversation with their Turkish counterparts. In this way, the United States can work towards establishing a strong, enduring, and values-based alliance with Turkey that will serve to bring justice to the people of Cyprus, strengthen NATO, and reinforce collective Western security.
-- Congressman John P. Sarbanes
The only justified interventi
BECAUSE, recent declassifi
The Council of Europe resolution 573 states:
"3. Regretting the failure of the attempt to reach a diplomatic settlement which led the
Turkish Government to exercise its right of interventi
the Guarantee Treaty of 1960;"
http://www
* to what extend can this be considered a justificat
especially since it tends to change the constituti
"4. Bearing in mind the resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council on 20
July 1974, the reactions of the countries directly involved in the conflict, which have
agreed to meet in Geneva, and the common position adopted by the member states of the
European Community and the NATO Council;"
Sec, Council res. 353
"1. Calls upon all States to respect the sovereignt
integrity of Cyprus;
2. Calls upon all parties to the present fighting as a first step to cease all firing and
requests all States to exercise the utmost restraint and to refrain from any action which
might further aggravate the situation;
3. Demands an immediate end to foreign military interventi
Cyprus that is in contravent
A Andreou
I'm sorry but you simply can't do much of anything to recover credibilit
What I gave you are nothing but the true facts, while you blindly believe the Turkish propaganda lies. One of the biggest (but not only one) lies of the Turkish propaganda is that in 1974 they invaded Cyprus to stop the killing of Turkish Cypriots. This is nothing but a lie which unfortunat
I repeat: NO Turkish Cypriot was killed in 1974 until AFTER Turkey invaded on 20th of July and started to kill and ethnically cleanse Greek Cypriots with the help of Turkish Cypriot extremists
The inter-comm
The few 100s of Turkish Cypriots that died in 1974, died AFTER the Turkish invasion started, and only after a much greater number of Greek Cypriots were already murdered.
If you want to refute this fact then provide evidence. Search all you want you will not find any Turkish Cypriot casualties in 1974 that happened before the 20th of July, the day of the Turkish invasion.
"The Turkish fighters have pledged to fight on until the realizatio
Halkan Sesi, mouthpiece of Turkish Cypriot leadership , 26 February 1964
"Naturally Turkey has strategic interests in Cyprus. It is fortunate that the Turkish Cypriot community exists here. Even if the Turkish Cypriot community did not exist, Turkey would not have left Cyprus to Greece."
Turkish occupation representa
Former Turkish diplomat, Emin Dirvana, in Turkish newspaper Milliyet , 15 June 1964
"The Turkish Cypriot leaders have adhered to a rigid stand against any measures which might involve having members of the two communitie
Report S/6426 of the United Nations Secretary General , 10 June 1964
Athens Court of Appeal dtd. March 21, 1979: The court decision reads as follows:
"The Turkish interventi
More about your "objective
http://www
http://www
“The Imam of the Omorphita (K.Kaymakl
“I was allowed to go around the besieged Turkish sector. I was taken to the Kumsal area and, walking on the broken pieces of glass, I entered into a green-whit
“Daily Telegraph” of 14 January 1964
“This evening, we went to the Turkish sector of Nicosia, where 200-300 Turks were killed within nine days. We were the first Western reporters who went there. We have seen there indescriba
Il Giorno of 14 January 1964
When I discussed the question with our UN ambassador
Ffrom Ball's 1982 memoir, "The Past Has Another Pattern";
The Cypriot people want today what they always wanted: Freedom to rule their own island in a democratic way, in peace, and without foreign armies and human rights violations
The anachronis
The members of the Turkish Cypriot community should be equal Cypriot citizens and as a community they can have all the powers and privileges that similarly sized ethnic groups have in all other countries. Turkey should stop using this community as the pawns for her expansioni
Turkey used the same excuse as Hitler used when he invaded Czechoslov
As is always the case in Cyprus, the Turks initiate a conflict, murder a great amount of innocent people, and then try to present themselves as the victims because during the conflict they initiated they also had some casualties
If having casualties is an indication of the innocence of a side, then Nazi Germany would also be "innocent" since the Germans had 2 million civilian casualties
continues.
Christian Science Monitor of 19 February 1964
Unfortunat
In 1974 a coup happened in Cyprus (not an unusual phenomenon at those times in the area. Several coups happened in Turkey as well). Turkey used this weak moment of Cyprus to executed the final stages of her partition plan. With the help of some Turkish Cypriots, Turkey invaded Cyprus, killed 1000s, ethnically cleansed 100s of thousands (the vast majority of the population
... continues
“Daily Mail” of January 1964
People in Cyprus were murdered and the Turkish government was threatenin
In 1963 the president of Cyprus proposed changes to the constituti
continues.
Christian Science Monitor of 17 February 1964
In fact we can't even confirm if such article exists. All you know is that one paragraph as you copied it from a Turkish propaganda website. More about your "creditabl
http://www
in 1974 and brought to light the Greek Cypriot brutality.
In his article Angastiniy
"I'm constantly asked why I'm opening old wounds and not letting the past to be forgotten. The answer is very simple. The wounds are not old, otherwise there wouldn't be mothers dressed in black, weapons, soldiers and borders. Although I've lived on this island for 40-years, I only began to explore the other half of the realities last year and what I discovered bore a deep wound in my soul.
Turkey enticed the Turkish minority to start the conflict by promising to them gains of land and powers on the expense of the Greek majority, similar to the gains and privileges that the Muslim minority enjoyed on the expense of the local population during Ottoman rule.
In June of 1958 the Turkish minority initiated the conflict after calls from broadcasts and newspaper articles from Turkey inciting them to murder and start a civil war.
(links below from the records of British government
http://han
Members of the Turkish minority burned the shops and homes of innocent Greek Cypriot people on the 7th of June 1958, while the first massacre occurred on the 12 of June when 8 innocent Greek Cypriots were killed. The conflict escalated from there, exactly as planned by the Turkish government and according to the partition plan.
http://han
http://www
http://www
At the same time the Turkish propaganda started spreading lies about the Turkish casualties even thought the majority of the casualties were among Greeks:
http://han
(you can see similar lies and gross exaggerati
continues ...
And what you do instead? You copy paste from Turkish propaganda websites tiny parts from selectivel
All the quotes you posted in response to my comments came from this page:
http://www
A Turkish propaganda website created to spread lies about the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks. And since the owners of that website got so much training in creating propaganda they decided to use their skills to excuse their heinous crimes in Cyprus as well.
Surprise surprise (not), they even have a page dedicated in anti-Kurdi
http://www
A "great" source indeed. You don't need to know the history. Whenever the heinous crimes of Turkeys are discussed against the Greeks, Armenians, Kurds or anybody else who was unfortunat
How many COMBAT troops does NATO member Turkey have in Afghanista
Ans : ZERO.
Yes, Turkey has about 1600 troops in Afghanista
But not a single one is tasked with picking up a rifle against the enemy. That's left for real NATO allies.
Cihangir, are you brainwashe
Using your cohorts writings (e.g. Die Zeit above) is no valid argument. Present original documents
if you can.
Here is one for you from the present minister of foreign affairs of Turkey
“Even if there was not a single Muslim Turk there [i.e. Cyprus], Turkey ought to maintain a Cyprus Issue. No country can remain indifferen