Comments by freethinking

Well, nerve is what you need to claim that Homer was "Turkish"!!!

This is what Turkey is claiming :)

At least they are not claiming they built the Parthenon!

Steep price indeed - the whole Greekcypriot population of the occupied north was ethnically cleansed by the Turkish army so that, as you say, there will be a "state that consists almost entirely of an islamic population"! Thanks for admitting the goal of Turkey's ethnic cleansing of the native Greek population (who suffered abuse, rapes and 7000 dead - 1.5% of the population) - war crimes for which Turkey has been found guilty in European courts.

Dear John,

I think my.opinion honestly believes that Christian churches in occupied Cyprus that the Turkish authorities have turned into toilets, aninal pens etc, as long as they have not been demolished, are considered to be in "good shape"!!!
Different people have different standards I guess!

"TRNC" is an illegal, puppet state created by the Turkish occupation army as a result of the illegal Turkish invasion of 1974 (see relevant UN resolutions) - by definition, colonisation as a result of occupation is a War crime under the Geneva Convention - but of course, you don't know these things as it does not suit you!

Clever answer - you completely sidestepped the issue that i raised i.e the criminal destruction of occupied Cyprus' cultural heritage by the Turkish army.

Obviously you are are lying because anybody who has been to the free part of the Cyprus Republic will have seen how many mosques are there, still maintained at the Greekcypriots' expense since 1974.

Even as soon as you land in Larnaka airport, the first thing you see is the Hala Sultan Mosque, a heritage site for islam.

"I found a number of operating Syriac Christian churches and visited two monastries...." you wrote.

2 monasteries????

Is this normal for a country Turkey's size and population????

Germany has 2 monasteries you think? Poland 1???? Russia 4???

Have you seen any traces of the Armenian Genocide anywhere in Anatolia???

If the "Anatolians" were "homogenised", as you say, by the Greeks, how come 2000 years later (1453) "with the help of Asian Turkish tribes the Anatolians were able to reclaim their ancestral lands occupied for centuries by the alien Greeks..."???
I mean, how did these Anatolian descendants (who only spoke Greek!) in the 1300's, 1400's remember that their forebears had been homogenised, and decided to free themselves from themselves???? Given that they were all mixed up and so in charge of the Byzantine Empire in any case????
By the way, these Anatolians spoke Greek to the Asian Turks, or the Asian Turks spoke Greek with them??? I'm very curious for the answer - maybe Latin instead???

You say..."While the current population of Anatolia is "Turkish" and clearly contains genetic traces of the Asian Turks most Turks today resemble the people of Anatolia who have lived in these lands for millenia..."
Doesn't this mean, as your argument goes, that as the Anatolians had been homogenised with the Greeks, then today's "Turks" are also Greeks????

to cuniculus sapiens

Dear Friend, u can read a lot about the criminal destruction of Cyprus' cultural heritage by Turks, aided and abetted by the Turkish occupying forces. Just google it!

A few links for your perusal (from non-Cypriot sites):

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/cyprus/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/01/world/greek-orthodox-church-icons-rava...

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/14/148602378/800-year-old-frescoes-headed-hom...

http://capitolwords.org/date/2010/07/20/S6021-3_cyprus/

http://www.cyprusembassy.net/home/index.php?module=article&id=3638

Have u ever visited occupied Cyprus ????

I live in Cyprus!!

BY purposeful destruction, I mean turning Churches etc into toilets, army munition dumps, animal pens or just desecrating them and removing frescoes, walls and roofs. Of course, Crosses have been long removed by the Turkish army.

A bit like Armenian churches in Eastern Anatolia - a well tested method of whatever lands Turks occupy.

A bit ironic that Turkey "cares" so much about artefacts created by ancient Greeks (who inhabited the Aegean cost from 700BC) eg the Pergamon altar, Hittites, Trojans etc BUT at the same time, since Turkey's illegal and brutal military invasion (and continuing occupatin) of the north of Cyprus in 1974, they have - on purpose - destroyed at least 300 Churches, monasteries and ancient Greek sites in the occupied part of the island. Purpose being to eradicate any evidence of christianity and Greek roots of the place, aided by the illegal colonisation of the place with illiterate settlers from Turkish mainland (a war crime, under Geneva convention).
Hypocricy on the grandest of scales!

Your usual, repeated propaganda. Many Turkishcypriots prefer to live in the free areas of the Republic of Cyprus rather than the Turkish occupied north, where crime is rife, the Turkish army bullies the civilians. Many more cross over the ceasefire line to come for shopping or even excursions, without worrying about anything.
why don't you mention about the frequent protests by Turkishcypriots against Turkish rule of the occupied north???

No need to show your panic Ahmet, Turkey is losing the great energy game and you know it.

Settlers coming to Cyprus after 1974, as a result of an illegal (by international law) Turkish invasion and occupation are complicit to a (continuing) WAR CRIME as per the Geneva Convention - you then decide whether the ethnically cleansed Greek cypriots (by the Turkish army) should accept settlers remaining in the ancestral homes of Cypriots.

@ green robin

Re the Armenian Genocide - if it's so trivial according to you (US recognising it), why does Turkey kicks up such afuss every April, threatenening the US Congress whenever recognition comes up for discussion?

Re international law - I was referring to the UN Law of the Sea that Turkey refuses to ratify even though it is part of the EU acquis (that it is trying so desperately to comply to), and even though Turkey has applied the Law of the Sea's provisions in the Black Sea (because there it suits her, but not in the Mediterranean).
Also, Armenia "occupies" Azeri territory as you say, so according to you this justifies Turkish blockade against Armenia - so what should we do to Turkey for occupying Cyprus, against many UN resolution and in violation of inernational and European Law?????

@ green robin

Turkey is a paper tiger - where is the second Mavi flotilla to Gaza?
It chickened out because it knows Israel is not fooling around.
Turkey is a bully, bullying only those weaker than itself. But gradually, it is being revealed for what it really is.
Look at the French and the Armenian Genocide - wait and you will see that Turkey will NOT dare carry out reprisals against France.
Soon the US will also recognise it - what will Turkey then do????

Re the Republic of Cyprus, with pop. 800,000 (ignoring the occupied territories in the north as these contain Turkish settlers that will eventually return to Turkey, just like Nazi settlers left occupied Europe after Hitler's collapse), compared to Turkey's 80 million (or thereabout), I think despite its size, it is causing Turkey much bigger problems than Turkey anticipated when it invaded it in 1974.
Because of Turkish occupation of 40% of Cyprus, many EU accession negotiation chapters are blocked and thanks to the recent discoveries of offshore hydrocarbon deposits between Cyprus and Israel, Turkey can no longer ignore the Law of the Sea. Despite Turkey's war threats, war games, bullying etc, Cyprus is going ahead with drilling its deposits thanks to the provisions of the internationally agreed Law of the Sea (which Turkey refuses to sign, even though it applies the same provisions in the Black Sea).

Turkey thinks it is a superpower and therein lies its problem as it has spread itself too thinly.
It has been occupying Cyprus since 1974, finding the occupation issue and the violations of int. law and human rights' abuses of Cypriots wherever it goes, it has been threatening Greece in the west, spending billions to maintain an arms race, trying to bully Israel thus turning Israel and the Jewish American lobby against it (meaning the US is going to recognise the Armenian Genocide soon), thus forcing Israel to make an alliance with Greece and Cyprus to protect its offshore gas reserves, refusing to accept the Armenian Genocide thus having problems in its east, persecuting Moslem Kurds within Turkey so an explosion is about to happen, and now messing up with Syria, Iran and Iraq meaning more problems in its south!
Great zero problem policy - what will go wrong with Bulgaria I wonder???