Letter to the Financial Times of London on 7 February in response to the article 'Greek Cyprus watches Kosovo's move' by Quentin Peel on 6 February 2008
Sir
Let's put the record straight. There is no such country called “Greek Cyprus” on the island of Cyprus. There is the Republic of Cyprus encompassing the whole island, a member of the UN, EU and Commonwealth and a glance on their list of member states, does not show a "Greek Cyprus". So it is puzzling why the FT persists in using such misleading and erroneous terminology in many of its articles.
Also, lets refresh our memories. Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus in 1974, occupied 37 per cent of its territory and permanently stationed there 43,000 Turkish troops (Source UN report S/1994/680); it ethnically cleansed the entire population of the occupied north – some 200,000 Cypriots – Greeks, Latins, Maronites and others, were forcibly removed by the Turkish army and more than 160,000 Turkish colonists were transported from Turkey into the occupied area and given the homes of the evicted refugees, in attempt to permanently alter the demographic composition of the island and thus preventing any settlement.
More than 120 UN and Security Council resolutions are calling for the withdrawal of the Turkish army and for respect of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus. The UN Secretary General, in his recent report on Cyprus (S/2007/699 – Dec 08), para 47, states inter alia “Recognition or assisting secession will be contrary to the resolutions of the Security Council”.
Therefore, why should the President of the Republic of Cyprus, its Foreign Minister, the Cypriot people or any right minded human being, support the recognition into a state of a regime created by Turkey as a result of the above mentioned atrocities and violations of international law?
Finally, Cyprus became a "full member of the EU" in April 2004, on merit by fulfilling all the EU requirements and through the hard work of its citizens. Cyprus did not create "its internal division" – this was created by Turkey and those Western powers that aided and abetted it and if there is one country that should be punished, this should be Turkey and not the Republic of Cyprus and its courageous people.
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