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 intervention (by Turkey) would have been to RESTORE the constitutional order in Cyprus. That, Turkey could have easier achieved by an appeal to the junta of Greece and the British government. Fat chance ...
BECAUSE, recent declassification of formerly confidential or secret documents in Britain and the US indicate, or rather prove, that Turkish governments, in cooperation or rather under authorship of the British, have been planning the partition of Cyprus since the '50s or earlier and that the 1974 invasion falls suit in with these plans. And that the US had always favored Turkey because of her buffer position vs the Soviet Union, or now Russia and the Islamic Fundamentalism in Iran. In the particular invasion in 1974 Kissinger went along reluctantly ...he preferred Clerides to Makarios. Turkey apparently went further than Kissinger expected and it is yet not clear to what extend had the junta agreed. However, the fact that junta officers were ordering no fire because "the Turks are only having an exercise" is indicative.
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 intervention in accordance with Article 4 of
the Guarantee Treaty of 1960;"
http://www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/mfa2006.nsf/All/6A376743F920ACADC22571D200208049/$file/Res%20573%20%281974%29.pdf?OpenElement
* to what extend can this be considered a justification of the invasion?
especially since it tends to change the constitutional structure of the Republic of Cyprus and that in article 4, mention is made of a resolution by "Security Council on 20 July 1974" (can only be 353)
"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 sovereignty, independence and territorial
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 intervention in the Republic of
Cyprus that is in contravention of the provisions of paragraph 1 above;"
A Andreou
I'm sorry but you simply can't do much of anything to recover credibility after having written this. Address the facts, the content, attempt to answer a question-anything. But simple repeating the odious mendacity of the official Greek Cypriot nationalists and the all to politically dominant church is at best adolescent and intellectually bankrupt.
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 unfortunately people like you believe without any further investigation.
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-communal conflict, that Turkish Cypriots initiated in 1958, and where several 100s of people from BOTH sides were killed, was over long before 1974.
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 realization of partition. The attitude of the Turkish minority has been admittedly one of provoking division and instigating armed conflict with the aim of partition."
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 representative Rauf Denktash , 23 July 1985
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 communities live and work together, or which might place Turkish Cypriots in situations where they would have to acknowledge the authority of Government agents. Indeed, since the Turkish Cypriot leadership is committed to physical and geographical separation of the communities as a political goal it is not likely to encourage activities by Turkish Cypriots which may be interpreted as demonstrating the merits of an alternative policy. The result has been a seemingly deliberate policy of self-segregation by the Turkish Cypriots."
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 intervention in Cyprus, which was carried out in accordance with the London-Zurich agreements, was legal. Turkey had, as one of the Guarantor Powers, the right to fulfill her obligation. The true guilty ones were the Greek Officers, who organised the coup and thereby created the conditions for an intervention."
More about your "objective" source of information in my reply to you here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/A_Andreou/can-america-rely-on-turke_b_652739_54745681.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/A_Andreou/can-america-rely-on-turke_b_652739_54749763.html
“The Imam of the Omorphita (K.Kaymakli) village and his crippled and blind son were found today dead in their beds. The Turks who returned to Omorphita found Imam HÜSEYIN IÐNECI riddled with machine-gun bullets.
“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-white house that had a garden of orange trees and around which a stray black-and-white car was wandering. As if the bathroom of this was a slaughterhouse, everywhere was covered with blood and a woman and three children were lying in blood in the bath. There was another dead woman in the adjacent room.”
“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 indescribably horrifying scenes.”
Il Giorno of 14 January 1964
When I discussed the question with our UN ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, he responded with far more heat than I had expected. During the "troubles" he had stayed for three days in Archbishop Makarios's residence and he regarded his former host with total contempt. The Archbishop was, he said, a wicked, unreliable conniver who concealed his venality under the sanctimonious vestments of a religious leader; the only way to deal with Makarios, Stevenson assured me, was by "giving the old bastard absolute hell." In all the years I had known Adlai I had never heard him speak of anyone with such vitriol. "I have sat across the table from that pious looking replica of Jesus Christ," he said, "and if you saw him with his beard shaved and a push-cart, you would recall the old saying that there hasn't been an honest thief since Barabbas."
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 anachronistic racist practices that were imposed on Cyprus since the Ottoman era should finally be replaced with modern values of democracy and human rights for all Cypriots without racist discriminations and forced segregation.
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 expansionistic aims and the Turkish Cypriots should stop expecting unfair and racist gains on the expense of the majority of the population. Only in this way peace and freedom can finally come to Cyprus.
Turkey used the same excuse as Hitler used when he invaded Czechoslovakia. Hitler claimed that he invaded Czechoslovakia to protect the German minority in that country. Similarly, Turkey claimed that they invaded Cyprus to protect the Turkish minority. The truth however is that no Turkish Cypriot was harmed in 1974 until the day of the Turkish invasion. Any Turkish Cypriot casualties that year happened only after the Turkish invasion, and after the Turkish army and Turkish Cypriot extremists has already massacred 1000s of Greek Cypriots.
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. Obviously having losses in a war is not an indication of "innocence". Not only the Cypriots had far more casualties than the Turks, but most importantly it is the Turks who initiated each and every war and conflict in Cyprus. Starting from their first invasion in 1570, to the massacres and oppression of Cypriots that continued until 1878, to the conflict they initiated in 1958, the invasion of 1974 and the illegal occupation that continues until today.
continues...
Christian Science Monitor of 19 February 1964
Unfortunately Turkey and the Turkish minority not only rejected the proposals, but they abandoned the government and resumed the conflict, a conflict which resulted in some 100s of casualties among both Greek and Turkish Cypriots. During this conflict the Turks furthered their aim of partition by forcing even more segregation among the population. They moved into specific areas of Cyprus while forcing Greek Cypriots (but also Armenian Cypriots) out of the territories they placed under their control. This conflict was mostly over by 1968 and negotiations were under way between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
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) from the north part of Cyprus, and to this day she continues her illegal occupation.
... continues
“Daily Mail” of January 1964
People in Cyprus were murdered and the Turkish government was threatening the Cypriot people with annihilating them from half of their own island. This way Turkey (and the UK) managed to blackmail Makarios, the leader of Cyprus, and force him to accept what was known as the Zurich agreements, which established in Cyprus an apartheid type of system which segregated the population and discriminated against the majority of the population. Under the same agreements the UK maintained two large bases in Cyprus. This was clearly not a constitution that came out of the free will of the Cypriot people, but something imposed which served the interests of foreign powers and their local collaborators.
In 1963 the president of Cyprus proposed changes to the constitution that would remove the segregation and racist discriminations and create a more democratic system were all Cypriots would be equal regardless of their ethnicity. In this system the Turkish minority would still have more powers and privileges than those given to all other minorities, (e.g. the Greek or Kurdish minorities in Turkey) but not the provocatively unjust gains on the expense of the human and democratic rights of the majority of the population.
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 "creditable" source here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/A_Andreou/can-america-rely-on-turke_b_652739_54745681.html
in 1974 and brought to light the Greek Cypriot brutality.
In his article Angastiniyotis said:
"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://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1958/jun/17/turkey-broadcasts-and-newspaper-articles
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://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1958/dec/10/cyprus
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gxoANVJ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT4EpCV2ysk
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://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1958/jun/24/murders
(you can see similar lies and gross exaggerations by reading some of the comments by Turks in the comments here)
continues ...
And what you do instead? You copy paste from Turkish propaganda websites tiny parts from selectively chosen newspaper articles. I bet you don't even know what the rest of the article you quote is about. All you know are the 3 lines, in many cases misquoted, as spoon fed to you by the Turkish propagandists. Talk about blind ignorance!
All the quotes you posted in response to my comments came from this page:
http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/cyprus.htm
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-Kurdish propaganda:
http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/kurd.htm
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 unfortunate to be invaded and oppressed by the Turks, all you need to do is go to this (and similar) propaganda websites and copy paste some quotes!
How many COMBAT troops does NATO member Turkey have in Afghanistan?
Ans : ZERO.
Yes, Turkey has about 1600 troops in Afghanistan, and I'm sure they make a great cup of coffee.
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 brainwashed or one of the propagandists?
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 indifferent to such an island which is situated in the heart of her vital space.” p.279 in the Greek translation of his book "Strategic Depth"..