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Cypriot
Greeks, Turks have equal political status
The Washington Times
FRIDAY,
MARCH 29, 2002
The March 20 story, “Compromise for Cyprus?” while giving
powerful insight into a complex and difficult issue, nevertheless contains
certain misconceptions and misleading cliches that require a response.
For
instance, the concept of majority and minority politics is not applicable in
the particular case of Cyprus, where there have always been two sides and
two peoples who, regardless of their relative size, have equal political
status. The agreements of 1960 gave the two parties forming the then-binational
republic “co-founder partner” status, while the secretary-general of the
United Nations, in a relevant report to the Security Council (S/21183),
described the relationship between them as “not one of majority and
minority” but of two political equals.
Similarly,
it is wrong and misleading to call the legal and justified Turkish
intervention after the Greek coup d’etat of July 1974 an “invasion.”
This timely intervention saved the Turkish Cypriots from total extermination
and prevented the complete takeover of the island by Greece, hence the
destruction of the independence of Cyprus. It is significant to note that
the U.N. organization has always used the neutral terminology of
“intervention” in its official documents.
As
far as European Union involvement in the Cyprus dispute is concerned, it is
unfortunate that it may have already done its damage to prospects for a
settlement by signaling to the Greek Cypriot side that it could achieve
membership without first reaching a settlement. This leaves the other side
with hardly any incentive to reach a fair compromise with the Turkish
Cypriots on equal terms.
Any
further involvement on the part of the EU, therefore, should only be aimed
at correcting this wrong, by freezing the
unilateral and unlawful application of the Greek Cypriot side until a
viable and just settlement is reached on the island.
OSMAN
ERTUĐ
Representative
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
Washington
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Letters On Cyprus
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