The election of a Turkish-nationalist hardliner in north Cyprus dims hopes for reunification

A strong pro-Turkish bias in this article.

I guess TE is overlooking the absurdity of the EU negotiating accession with a country whose troops are unashamedly occupying EU territory.

There also is no mention that the Turish occupation force committed nothing short of a genocide by demolishing 500 churches and now refusing not only to rebuild them, but even not allowing any outsider to rebuild them for their own money. Not to mention the systematic purge of Greeks from the occupied territory and the mass importation of mainland Turks. When China settles Han in Tibet, the time of TE is a bit different.

In conclusion: once again sucking up to Turkey. Disgraceful.

@Scepsis: What you say ignores the bloody history of Cyprus and the attacks on Turkish Cypriots that preceded the unfortunate, albeit necessary, Turkish invasion of 1974. The EU made the colossal mistake of admitting Cyprus, knowing that it was a divided island. Being a downtrodden and economically disadvantaged minority in a unified Hellenic republic does not exactly appeal to the average Turkish Cypriot. Consequently, Turkey cannot possibly recognize Cyprus without an equitable settlement for Turkish Cypriots. If the recent election in Northern Cyprus does not make Greek Cypriots come to their senses and sit at the negotiating table for a fair and equitable deal that guarantees their rights within a unified Cyprus, then the EU will eventually have to recognize the North as a separate country. It is, as you say, simple as that.

"Turkey cannot join the EU without a deal on Cyprus because the Greek-Cypriot Republic, an EU member since 2004, has a veto."

Simply untrue.

The real reason is because Turkey refuses to recognise the legitimate Republic of Cyprus, an EU member. It's as simple as that.

@Make Love not War: Despite your nickname, your comments belie the fact that you have no intention of making love instead of war. It seems pro-Greek Cypriots conveniently forget the bloody history of Cyprus, and the events that precipitated the invasion. Any injustices perpetrated by the Turkish side in the North must be viewed with the same lens as the gross injustices that befell the Turkish Cypriot community pre-1974. Ignoring this fact may ease your conscience and may make condemnation of perceived Turkish injustice or aggression much easier to do. However, an unbiased observer of the situation would not care to make such a bold pro-Greek Cypriot statement as you. If Greek Cypriots want a settlement, they know what to do. You cannot continue to rationalize your position by making ad nauseam references to International Treaties and Laws. Doing so would make unification a pipe dream, and the current de-facto separation an eventual political reality.

One can not help but notice that in this case there are no references whatsover to "occupied territories", Cypriot land, "right of return", "international law", "UNSC resolutions" and the like. Why, how come? Shouldn't Turkey simply remove its troops and settlers from the sovereign territory of Republic of Cyprus?

@dalgico
Please review the events of 1974 in a timeline.
The coup was put down on July 23rd, 3 1/2 days after it started.

Turkey established a bridgehead during that time.

On August 14, 1974, Turkey left peace talks in Geneva--long after the President of Cyprus was restored--and launched the second part of the invasion. It was the August 14 launch that captured the greater part of today's Turkish north, it captured the city of Morphou, Famagusta, Varosha, and northern Nicosia. It was during mid-August that the greater number of dead perished, and that the refugees fled. this was long after any case could be made about the protection of Turkish Cypriots from the right-wing Greeks, who had lost, were in jail, and even executed. Even Henry Kissinger was appalled at Turkey leaving the peace talks, and the whole world saw this as a land grab. That's why the whole world voted against Turkey and saw this as a criminal act. Anyone who would have held the invasion of its land against Cyprus (in its EU candidacy) is purely craven.

@equilibrium: The events that led to the 1974 occupation of Cyprus is almost analogous to the Six-day War of 1967. It is almost analogous, because whereas the events of 1974 did not increase the size of Turkey, the 1967 events did increase the size of Israel.

@P_P: If you are going to be a stickler for International Treaties and Laws, how about the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, which the U.S. and its allies conveniently ignored? The world is not quite as simple as you would like to believe, and people with good conscience cannot ignore the double standards and inaction of the West that allowed the attacks on the Turkish minority to continue for so many years, until the Turkish occupation of 1974.

You know as a fairly liberal minded person for years I supported my country's membership in the EU. But now, despite the strong financial incentive to favor membership, I would like to say the following:

You know what? Turkey doesn't really need your help all that much. We sure could have used a hand, but will not only survive with out the EU we will prosper. Just don't come back in 20 years when poor old (geriatric even) Germany's back is broken from trying to carry the rest of you fools into the 21st century. There will be no help forthcoming from Turkey. You can forget about Cyprus too.

EU membership for Turkey is a foregone conclusion. Turkey has to know that it will always be something that will be brought up as a reason to deny entrance. France, Germany and others are content to hide behind Greek-Cypriots but can find something else when or if the need ever arises. Turkey must proceed as if EU membership will never happen and perhaps then the Greek-Cypriots will negotiate for a fair deal for all, not a deal that will make all happy, but as fair as is possible.

P_P:

I agree with you. If this article was about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the descriptive terms of the article would have been different even though both situations, although not identical, are similar. I support Israel and I do not know why these terms are thrown at Israel over the Palestinians and not at Turkey regarding northern Cyprus.

shortly, no one in north cyprus or turkish republic of north cyprus wants to be neighbourhood with greeks after seeing how they were treated or punished by The eu promising to help north cyprus after voting 'yes' the UN plan on peace. also i want to say that no one in north cyprus complains about neither turkish army nor their State TRNC ,if so, there is not supposed to be any election held FREELY by turkish cyriots since turkish republic of north cyprus was established, right?

@Dan Asta: You really are missing the whole point of the occupation. One can hardly blame the Turkish forces for not withdrawing immediately and for the Turkish Cypriots for not sitting around a campfire with their former oppressors and singing Kumbaya, as soon as the pro-Greek coup was put down. The occupation was not staged merely to stop the attacks against the Turkish minority immediately prior to the invasion, but to ensure their future welfare, a task which given the circumstances, the Greek Cypriots could hardly be entrusted with. Of course, Western powers have a habit of condemning occupations they themselves are either not responsible for, or have not sanctioned in some way, so Mr. Kissinger's comment makes a lot of sense when seen in this light.

Having an insufficient knowledge about many of Turkey's controversies one way or the other, I won't contribute to the principal argument here about the justness of the Cyprus thing except to say that in typical form, the military museum in Istanbul is ALL FOR IT. But as a disinterested North American, I have to ask if you aren't all blowing this whole thing way out of proportion, for a reason which is a bit off topic.

The reason is basically (in perhaps a more disinterested voice) what was posted by Kaan the Magnificent.

One of the ancillary assumptions here, both in the comments and in the article, with most humble respect, is that you presume that Turkey should WANT to join the EU. Should it? What does it really have to gain?

It seems like a fair question to me. Turkey has grown phenomenally in recent years. Look at their numbers of unemployment, public debts, deficits, industrial prowess, cell phone usage, birth rate, quality of education, and pretty much anything else. It not only puts poorer EU admittees to shame, but often les grandes puissances like France. And, I note, all outside of the EU.

That's not to say Turkey has to isolate itself from Europe, but I do think there's a difference between full adhesion to the EU and e.g. negotiation of trade and transport agreements. If you compare Turkey's or Switzerland's or Norway's situations with other EU members, I think you'll find these countries are getting along perfectly well without full-on adhesion to the EU.

Besides, one of the arguments of a member of the French academic elite the other day was particularly revealing: France should support Turkey's membership so that it can use Turkey as a means of sustaining French interests in the Mideast." There's nothing to me more demonstrative of cynical arbitrariness of the EU than a comment like that. Why would Turkey try to become a part of that?

Which is all a very roundabout way of coming back to the central point of this discussion: if Turkey's EU membership doesn't matter, or if it's better for Turkey NOT to join, why does a small change in a decades'-old stalemate matter?

Dalgico,

Let's stick to the facts. There is in fact no impediment for Turkish Cypriots to have equal rights. After all they are EU citizens with full EU rights. The problem, as you well know, are the SETTLERS who are NOT Cypriot.

I have Turkish Cypriot colleagues in the south (in managerial positions, not low / menial jobs). They happily commute every day to the Republic, own property there, use the healthcare system for free (they are fully entitled to) and send their kids to a private school here.

In 2009 alone free healthcare to Turkish Cypriots (mostly non-tax payers) cost the Republic EUR32m. http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/32-million-health-care-turkish-cypriot...

So please do not perpetuate the myth that Turkish Cypriots are being discriminated against. The issue is and always has been one or illegal invasion and occupation.

As for your assertion that the EU will recognise the north as a separate state surely even you do not really believe that?

@P_P: According to you, International Law is defined fully by the letter of UN resolutions. In other words, whatever the powerful members of the UN Security council want it to mean, and can push on a 'coalition of the willing'. Let's suppose for a moment that Afghanistan deserved to have the invasion sanctified by some piece of paper signed by the UN. You cannot make the same claim in Iraq. You seem to be saying that since many people want to let the US get away with it, it was justified in invading Iraq - even though Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction, the original reason for going to war, were nowhere to be found. The plain fact is that the US ignore the letter of UN Resolutions and proceeded with the invasion anyway? So, which is it? Does the UN and/or some other international body fully define International Law in cases of sovereignty breach, or does it not?

Also, what 'legal' claims does the phony Republic have? As long as the Greek Cypriots have a stranglehold on the politics and economy of the North, and have convinced an apathetic world populace that they are in the right, relying on people like yourself to spend more time in researching UN Resolutions that aren't always taken so seriously by the people who write them, than you do about trying to promote a better understanding of this decades long struggle for justice and equality, I guess the answer would have to be 'none'.

The situation is simple:
This is a simple case of armed robbery with mass murder. The EU -and countries like the UK in particular- push for draconian measures against petty theft like illegal mp3 downloading and brush off this.
Even worse, Mrs. Blair has -fortunately unsuccessfully- defended the Orams, who knowingly bought property that is the product of armed robbery with murder. In fact, why put Mr. Karadzic on trial if Mr. Etsevit was never even bothered? What exactly did Mr. karadzic do that Mr. Etsevit did not? Even in Srebrenica, women and children were sparred, which is not the case with Mr. Etsevit.
-Furthermore, Turkey is still occupying EU soil in Cyprus. On the one hand federalists push for a federal government, and on the other hand that government does not protect its own citizens. The UK in particular has gone out of its way to ensure that any EU army should go and fight in far away places and NOT defend EU soil.
Imagine Japan occupying Hawaii and the US government holding accession talks.

As to history, even if Turkey had an excuse for invading, they certainly did not have any for bringing in colonists(in fact the majority of what some people call 'turkish cypriots' are not cypriot at all, but simply colonists who accepted the product of armed robbery with mass murder. And much of the problems between true greek and turkish cypriots were caused by the british using the later against the former. As to the ethnic cleasing ideas by greek cypriots, these are just junk and anyone with half a brain knows it. Mr. Denktash's own terrorist organization was responsible for killing many turkish cypriots who were not in accord with his extremism.
As for the 2004 Anan plan, which was tailor-made for and by Turkey, let me remind you that Cyprus did work hard to comfortably achieve all criteria, while the 'turkish cypriots' were run by Denktash who
had torpedoed any attempt to a deal since 1974 and did not want to do anything for the EU talks? So suddenly when one side has worked hard to achieve the criteria, then they change their mind and have to be rewarded for 30 years of torpedoing by getting exactly what Turkey wants, including the right to militarily intervene any time it feels like(yes, read the Anan plan, this was in it!) and reducing a sovereign country to a dysfunctional protectorate , with Denktash as a president for 6 months?

@equilibrium

Right, and Israel has arguable--and quite persuasive to me--legal claim to the disputed territories (and a genuine security concern in Golan). Turkey or its phony republic vis-à-vis part of Cyprus? None comes to mind...

@dalgico

Both the initial invasion to overthrow Taliban in response to act of war originating from Afghan territory (see UN S.C. Res. 1368 of 12 September 2001 and UN S.C. Res. 1373 of September 28, 2001), and continued presence of ISAF in Afghanistan are indisputably in line with international law.

US and the coalition had arguable case that Iraq had broken ceasefire agreement. Whatever the disputes about that, the presence of coalition in Iraq was in any case "regularized" after the invasion.

I refuse to have opinion one way or the other about Kosovo...

So, what legal claims does Turkey or the phony republic have?

@Kaan the Magnificent,

The fact is that Turkey needs EU membership in order to be accepted as a Western state, but more importantly in order to realise the "Great European Dream" of your Father Ataturk...

P_P:
I also want to point out that the Turkish PM Erdogen last year vociferously condemned Israel's Cast Lead operation against Hamas in Gaza.
If Greek Cypriots would start firing missiles into northern Cyprus and kidnapping Turkish soldiers PM Erdogen would have done the same thing Israel did.

I can't begin to fathom the level of antihellenism that must prevail in the Economist. The moral equivalance exhibited by this article, equating the actions of the victims with those of the aggresor is shocking.

Not only is Turkey not brought to task for its ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Greeks, a war crime, but neither is the fact mentioned that Turkey has illegally settled tens of thousands of turkish colonists in the territories they have rendered Christian-rein.

This is a repeat of the Greek Genocide with the same perpetrators, the Turks. As long as Turkey does not recognize its bloody and genocidal history it will continue to perform attrocities. As recently as the 1990's Turkey was involved in a massive ethnic cleansing campaign against its own Kurdish population.

And yet the Economist has the gull to preach moral equivalence. PATHETIC.