To Ms. Annalena Baerbock, the minister responsible for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, kindly acknowledge.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who met in Berlin with the Foreign Minister of the Greek Cypriot administration, Ionnis Kasulidis, stated that "there is no two-state solution in Cyprus and Germany will support efforts to unify the island," to which Kasulidis said, "If the current situation continues like this, it will lead to disintegration."
Kasulidis' statement is realistic, but Baerbock's statement is not realistic and lacks serious and comprehensive knowledge of the problem. Since Turkish Cypriots overwhelmingly approved a referendum in 2004 to unify the island on the basis of the Annan Plan drawn up by the United Nations and supported by the European Union, while Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected it, I wonder what miracle formula Ms. Baerbock wants to use to unify the island?
Is there any serious analysis of this issue in Germany as well as in the EU? No, there is not and there never has been. For the EU, Cyprus is an instrument to hold Türkiye politically hostage.
It is clear that the German foreign minister ignores the history of the island, which was never Greek. She probably mixed up Roman with Greek.
Byzantium was a Roman empire and not a Greek one. Considering Cyprus a Greek territory because the Greek language is spoken there does not make the island Greek. Just as speaking the Russian language in the Donetsk region of Ukraine does not make it Russian territory.
Being well aware of the problem, Kasulidis confirms a reality that has been ongoing for 49 years and affirms that, "The island would be disintegrated if the current situation continues." For she knows that the north of the island belongs to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). After witnessing what it has taken Bosnians to trust the U.N. and the EU, it is not possible for Turkish Cypriots to live together with their Greek executioners when they have experienced EOKA persecution since 1955 and the massacres of 1963, 1964, 1967 and 1974.
I kindly request you Mrs. Baerbock, first of all, to find out from your Minister of Interior how many houses of Turks in Germany, stores, mosques and vehicles were burned, destroyed and attacked. Also to find how many Turks were burned or killed in one way or another, and then tell us how the EU will protect the Turks in Cyprus from the aggression of the Greeks.
How will you ensure the protection of Turkish Cypriots under Greek authority in a single state, while even a democratic and legal state like Germany cannot protect Turks within its borders?
However, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the following facts:
– In 1955, the organization called EOKA was established in Cyprus, based on Greek racial consciousness. Its aim was to annex the island to Greece, with the slogan of "Enosis." The EOKA started terrorist campaigns, first against the British authority and then against the Turks. As a result of EOKA's terrorist attacks, between 1955 and 1958, more than 50,000 Turks who lived with Greeks had to leave areas they shared with Greeks.
– In 1960, the state of Cyprus was established and Makarios III, the head of the Orthodox Church, became the president of the island. In other words, 19 years before Ruhollah Khomeini (also known as Ayatollah Khomeini), a religious leader became the head of state. The Muslim Turkish Cypriots accepted this as well.
– To ensure impartiality, a German-born judge was appointed president of the Constitutional Court. He resigned a year later because he could not tolerate Makarios' unlawful practices against Turkish Cypriots.
– On Dec. 21, 1963, Makarios first removed Turkish Cypriots from state institutions with the Akritas Plan, which aimed to remove Turks from the administration and initiate an ethnic cleansing.
– On the night of Dec. 24, Christmas Eve, the assassins who raided the villages on the orders of an archbishop killed hundreds of Turks. As a result of the attacks, 30,000 Turks had to leave 103 villages they had inhabited. The attacks continued in 1964, and 364 more Turks were killed. This event was more cruel and much more violent than the Reich Kristallnacht in November 1938.
– Similar attacks and massacres were repeated in 1967.
– The junta of colonels appointed in Greece in the same year led a coup in 1974 to initiate the "Final Solution," just like the genocide perpetrated by Adolf Hitler against the Jews. Throughout the period of genocide in the whole of Europe, no one, not even the Vatican, saved the Jews in Europe, except the Turks. Türkiye intervened in Cyprus, just as our Embassy in Paris and our Consuls in Marseilles, Rhodes and Crete saved some 30,000 Jews from the German Nazis.
In fact, the state of Cyprus was completely destroyed by both Greek Cypriots and Greeks in 1974.
– 30 years later, the Annan Plan prepared by the U.N. and supported by the EU was presented. In the 2004 referendum, Turks voted 65% in favor, while Greeks voted 76% against.
– What have you done as the EU, Mrs. Baerbock? You have illegally accepted into the EU the Cypriot Greeks who rejected the Annan plan to unify the island, and you have continued to impose an embargo on Turkish Cypriots who accepted your plan.
The united Cyprus plan was sabotaged for the second time by the Greeks themselves!
Has any sane person in the EU ever thought about the following?
These two communities have been divided since 1963. In the last 50 years, the generation that lived together in the past has disappeared. There is no generation that lived together in any village, town, school, hospital, workplace, stadium, shopping mall and so on.
On the contrary, those Turkish who lived in fear of death between 1955 and 1974 live now in complete safety since 1974. What guarantee can you offer the Turks in a society that will inevitably live together with their former executioners in a single state? Will you give a similar guarantee to the 8,000 Bosnians who were under the protection of Dutch soldiers in Srebrenica in 1995 and then massacred by the Serbs, without regard for babies, children, teenagers, old women and men?
Proposing the Turks in Cyprus to live under the authority of the Greek aggressors is not much different from asking the Jews living in European countries to go and reside in 1933 Germany.
I would like to conclude my article with two basic questions. One is technical and the other political.
– Has there been any study made by the German Foreign Ministry and presented to all members of the government to support such an unequivocal statement as foreign minister? If so, can you name that study? Or is your statement a declaration of intent based on no data? In that case, is it possible to take you and the German government seriously? It took 30 years, from 1974 to 2004, to implement the Annan Plan. In how many years can you prepare a new plan and a referendum?
– Based on your political experience (you specialize in international law) and I wonder if the admission of Greek Cyprus to the EU was legally legitimate and I continue to wonder how we can create a political miracle that will allow Turkish Cypriots to live in a state dominated by Greeks, with full security for life and property and as equal citizens, after the events I listed above.
*Former Turkish minister of health and culture and tourism
