Cyprus – one island, one country or two

[snoop1130]

Cyprus – one island, one country or two

by Nori And Scott Brixen

 

 

“Boys! Welcome to Greece!” I shouted from the front seat of our taxi. This was Tai and Logan’s 33rd country; Drake and Kiva’s 31st Nori and I had been to Greece once before; a wild two weeks in Athens, Aegina and Corfu around the 2008 Olympics. “No!” the driver groaned, as if I had garrotted him. “This is not Greece! This is Cyprus! What? I pride myself on being well-informed. I memorise obscure geographical facts (Siberian rivers, Brazilian provinces) for fun. I was certain that Cyprus was an island divided between Greece and Turkey, like Haiti and the Dominican Republic, or East Timor and Indonesia. I was, of course, completely wrong. Abashed by my ignorance, I fired up Google as soon as we were in our airbnb. I was amazed to learn that Cyprus had been independent (from the UK!) since 1960. In July 1974, Turkey sent in troops to northern Cyprus, ostensibly to protect ethnic Turks from hopped-up ethnic Greek nationalists following a Greece-supported coup d’etat. The Turkish army never left. Then in May 2004, the whole of the island joined the European Union, together with Hungary, Finland and six others. This means that Cyprus was (and is) the only EU country subject to an invasion.

 

This half of the island certainly felt Greek. The language, the food, the landscape and even the light was unmistakably Greek. Despite wearing sunglasses, I got headaches from squinting so much. During the sweaty hour-long drive from Larnaca to Paralimni, I found myself muttering landscape adjectives: scorched, sun-baked, sun-bleached, parched, desiccated, pulverised, shattered. It was 100℉ outside. The A/C
in our rental car was literally blowing hot air. “I could never live here,”  I remarked to Nori, “I feel like I’m being X-rayed. This is what those Nazis felt like when they opened the Ark of the Covenant in the first Indiana Jones.” But Nori didn’t mind the searing heat. She was born in Bangkok, grew up in the humid suburbs of Washington D.C. and despised winter. On our travels, one of us was always unhappy temperature-wise; in Cyprus that would clearly be me. Now that we knew what Cyprus was and wasn’t, we felt compelled to visit northern Cyprus. Ahem, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, an independent nation recognised only by – wait for it – Turkey! We drove west back towards Larnaca before turning north to Nicosia/Lefkosa, “The world’s only divided capital city” – a bizarre tourism slogan.

 

We drove around Nicosia for thirty minutes, searching for the border. I thought it would be elementary: drive north until you hit a wall, a fence, a trench or until someone with a gun waves you back. Strangely, that didn’t work at all. The roads kept looping us back south. Finally, Nori spotted a sign for Kyrenia, the Greek name for Girne, the most famous seaside resort in northern Cyprus. Crossing into northern Cyprus was no big deal – by design. Our passports didn’t get stamped (drat!) because we weren’t technically leaving Cyprus. Similarly, there was no Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus border post for us to ‘check-in’ on the other side. We were required to buy a special insurance policy for our rental car – €25 for three days of coverage, what a racket! – but other than that, everything was easy. Upon leaving the not-really-a-border post, I realised why we’d struggled to find the frontier. Southern and Northern Cyprus were separated by a geographically absurd ‘no man’s land’ that ran in a drunken diagonal from the island’s Northwest to Southeast and ranged in width from over 4 miles to just 20 metres! Known locally as “The Green Line,” this demilitarised zone has been patrolled by UN Peacekeepers for decades.

 

The drive from the sort-of-border to Girne took less than an hour. Just before reaching the Mediterranean, the highway climbed up through a pass in the Kyrenia Mountains, which run for 160km along Cyprus’ northern coast. Though the highest point of the range (Mount Kyparissovouno) is only 1,024 metres, the rugged, limestone peaks are nonetheless dramatic because they rise directly from the sea. I turned left off the highway, following signs for Hilarion Castle. The dirt and gravel road ascended past a large Turkish army base. I smiled to see Ataturk again – it had been a long time. Even in ruins, Saint Hilarion Castle left me awestruck. Coiling atop a molar-shaped prominence with commanding views of the coast and Girne, the crenellated walls and towers evoked the fortresses of the fantasy novels I loved as a young boy. I would not have been surprised if a dragon had risen out of the hidden forest at the castle’s acme, the whump-whump of his powerful wingbeats audible miles away. Only later did I learn that the castle wasn’t a castle at all, but rather a preposterously well-defended monastery. Sorry dragon.

 

By this stage in the journey, we had visited a lot of castles and fortresses (Philippines, Italy, San Marino, Georgia, Lebanon, England and Scotland) so we didn’t bother with a tour of Saint Hilarion. In fact, the boys only left the car briefly for a perfunctory glance at the castle and a courtesy “wow.” Kyrenia Castle (Girne Kalesi) protected the entrance to the harbour, its yellow limestone bulk providing hundreds of places where my kids might plunge to their death. And they duly scampered on and around every one of them. It was beastly hot, so we retired to a little restaurant promising ‘homemade lemonade’ and giggled as the Bangladeshi staff made no attempt to hide the gallon jug of lemon cordial.
At least we had a nice view. Girne’s compact, picturesque harbour was crowded with fishing boats and gulets, the traditional wooden Turkish sailboats that now mostly take tourists on island cruises. Restaurants and souvenir shops ringed the promenade, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of visitors. To get back at them for false advertising, all four of the boys had a poo in their bathroom.

 

Full Story: https://expatlifeinthailand.com/travel-and-leisure/cyprus-one-island-one-country-or-two/

 

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[sirineou]

Best example of why NATO is useless for anything other than providing a unified front against Russia.

During the invasion of a Nato country, by another NATO country the rest of the NATO countries did nothing. 

The UN , another useless institution, has being developing formulas and solutions for the last  45 years while Cyprus  remains occupied. 

Cyprus has being Greek for thousands of years. The turks came there from Central Asia and Western China ,their atrocities of, genocides and extermination (Armenians, Pontic Greeks, Smirna, Curds, and most Christians)  would make the Nazis blush.

[Cory1848]

12 hours ago, sirineou said:

Best example of why NATO is useless for anything other than providing a unified front against Russia.

During the invasion of a Nato country, by another NATO country the rest of the NATO countries did nothing. 

The UN , another useless institution, has being developing formulas and solutions for the last  45 years while Cyprus  remains occupied. 

Cyprus has being Greek for thousands of years. The turks came there from Central Asia and Western China ,their atrocities of, genocides and extermination (Armenians, Pontic Greeks, Smirna, Curds, and most Christians)  would make the Nazis blush.

While I’m making no excuses for the ineffectiveness of NATO or the behavior of the Turkish army, when the Turks invaded in 1974 Cyprus was not a NATO member (and it still isn’t), and thus NATO was under no obligation to defend it. The invasion was in response to a coup by a Greek Cypriot paramilitary group who sought to unite the island with mainland Greece, also under a military dictatorship at the time. A decade earlier, just after Cyprus gained independence from Britain, the Greek Cypriots themselves engaged in a military campaign against the island’s substantial Turkish population, which had been there since the Ottomans took possession of Cyprus in the sixteenth century. The atrocities go both ways. And determining which “ethnic group” can lay claim to the island depends on how many centuries back you want to go.

 

Thankfully Cyprus has been at peace (for the most part) for decades, and as the article states, one can travel around freely and enjoy the island’s beauty. Sometimes, the best strategy for dealing with suspended conflicts like this one is to just leave them be, for the sake of the ordinary Greek- and Turkish-speaking inhabitants who just want to get on with their lives.

[Baerboxer]

2 hours ago, Cory1848 said:

While I’m making no excuses for the ineffectiveness of NATO or the behavior of the Turkish army, when the Turks invaded in 1974 Cyprus was not a NATO member (and it still isn’t), and thus NATO was under no obligation to defend it. The invasion was in response to a coup by a Greek Cypriot paramilitary group who sought to unite the island with mainland Greece, also under a military dictatorship at the time. A decade earlier, just after Cyprus gained independence from Britain, the Greek Cypriots themselves engaged in a military campaign against the island’s substantial Turkish population, which had been there since the Ottomans took possession of Cyprus in the sixteenth century. The atrocities go both ways. And determining which “ethnic group” can lay claim to the island depends on how many centuries back you want to go.

 

Thankfully Cyprus has been at peace (for the most part) for decades, and as the article states, one can travel around freely and enjoy the island’s beauty. Sometimes, the best strategy for dealing with suspended conflicts like this one is to just leave them be, for the sake of the ordinary Greek- and Turkish-speaking inhabitants who just want to get on with their lives.

 

One of the reasons for that peace is the presence of British Military Forces.

 

Quite a few years ago, some young friends, male and female, from Scotland holidayed there. While out exploring they wandered either near to or crossed from the Greek to the Turkish part. They were challenged by several somewhat aggressive and rude Turkish soldiers. Thankfully a party of British soldiers appeared, also Scottish. They more or less told the Turks to <deleted> off which they quickly did. My friends said whilst it seemed a good 'travelers'tale" at the time they were scared stiff until the Scottish soldiers turned up.

 

Ergogan will never remove the Turkish forces; even if it prevents Turkey's much wanted EU membership.

[HHTel]

Nothing in the article mentioned the 1500 still missing from the Turkish invasion and the edicts from the UN regarding Turkey. (Yeh, the UN has no teeth). The problem is ongoing and will probably never be solved.

[Cory1848]

2 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

 

One of the reasons for that peace is the presence of British Military Forces.

 

Quite a few years ago, some young friends, male and female, from Scotland holidayed there. While out exploring they wandered either near to or crossed from the Greek to the Turkish part. They were challenged by several somewhat aggressive and rude Turkish soldiers. Thankfully a party of British soldiers appeared, also Scottish. They more or less told the Turks to <deleted> off which they quickly did. My friends said whilst it seemed a good 'travelers'tale" at the time they were scared stiff until the Scottish soldiers turned up.

 

Ergogan will never remove the Turkish forces; even if it prevents Turkey's much wanted EU membership.

Thanks for clarifying. The Brits might be there for a while, given all the bad blood between Greeks and Turks. A good friend of mine who’s Turkish even says that all the delicious food that Greeks say is Greek cuisine is actually Turkish cuisine that the Greeks stole. I told her that I could only take her statement with a “large grain of salt.”

[roo860]

Was sent there in 74 as part of a British Army Spearhead Force. We were mainly erecting facilities for Greek Cypriots fleeing the North. 

[norfolkandchance]

1 hour ago, roo860 said:

Was sent there in 74 as part of a British Army Spearhead Force. We were mainly erecting facilities for Greek Cypriots fleeing the North. 

I was on duty at RAF Akrotiri in Operations on the morning of the Turkish invasion. Wife was in our rented house in Limassol under the kitchen table. All families where evacuated onto the Airbase days later. Scary times.

[roo860]

32 minutes ago, norfolkandchance said:

I was on duty at RAF Akrotiri in Operations on the morning of the Turkish invasion. Wife was in our rented house in Limassol under the kitchen table. All families where evacuated onto the Airbase days later. Scary times.

We spent about 6 weeks living under canvas, it was bloody boiling!!!

????

[Thingamabob]

Stayed in a hotel in Famagusta in 1974, one week before it was bombed to hell by the Turks. Very difficult to make judgements on which of the two sides is in the wrong historically speaking, although the Turks have clearly committed the worst of the atrocities. The Greeks however, have also done some bad stuff. I have friends in both camps, and over the years I have never been able to blame one more than the other.

[sirineou]

7 hours ago, Cory1848 said:

While I’m making no excuses for the ineffectiveness of NATO or the behavior of the Turkish army, when the Turks invaded in 1974 Cyprus was not a NATO member (and it still isn’t), and thus NATO was under no obligation to defend it. The invasion was in response to a coup by a Greek Cypriot paramilitary group who sought to unite the island with mainland Greece, also under a military dictatorship at the time. A decade earlier, just after Cyprus gained independence from Britain, the Greek Cypriots themselves engaged in a military campaign against the island’s substantial Turkish population, which had been there since the Ottomans took possession of Cyprus in the sixteenth century. The atrocities go both ways. And determining which “ethnic group” can lay claim to the island depends on how many centuries back you want to go.

 

Thankfully Cyprus has been at peace (for the most part) for decades, and as the article states, one can travel around freely and enjoy the island’s beauty. Sometimes, the best strategy for dealing with suspended conflicts like this one is to just leave them be, for the sake of the ordinary Greek- and Turkish-speaking inhabitants who just want to get on with their lives.

I really don't need a lesson in Greek history being the son of Greek political   refugees to the US during the abdication of King Constantine in  1967 and the military junta.  

 Cyprus has being Greek for Thousands of years. the culture was Greek, the language was Greek the history was Greek, the people living there are genetically Greek. No historical revisionism will ever change that.

  The turks captured Cyprus in 1571 and occupied Cyprus antil 1914 when it was annexed by the British and occupied until 1955  when EOKA and George Grivas tried to reunify Cyprus with Greece, but was not allowed by the British and Americans, a little less  than 20 years later the Greek military junta that resulted to my Family having to flee to the US tried also tried to Unify Cyprus with Greece. 

   Turkey invaded the northern part of part Cyprus under the pretext of protecting the Turkish minority that had being there only a few hundred years and existed in the most part in harmony with the Greek majority.  But that happened after Macarios  courted the Russians for support , something the Americans would not allow.  When Turkey invaded Cyprus the American 6th fleet prevented the Greek navy from assisting.   

                      THERE WERE NO GREEK ATROCITIES , only turkish. There were no genocides commited  by the Greeks, only the turks, The greeks belong there, the turks do not.

                     THERE IS NO EQUIVALENCY BETWEEN THE TWO SIDES.  

 

 

[Cory1848]

23 hours ago, sirineou said:

I really don't need a lesson in Greek history being the son of Greek political   refugees to the US during the abdication of King Constantine in  1967 and the military junta.  

 Cyprus has being Greek for Thousands of years. the culture was Greek, the language was Greek the history was Greek, the people living there are genetically Greek. No historical revisionism will ever change that.

  The turks captured Cyprus in 1571 and occupied Cyprus antil 1914 when it was annexed by the British and occupied until 1955  when EOKA and George Grivas tried to reunify Cyprus with Greece, but was not allowed by the British and Americans, a little less  than 20 years later the Greek military junta that resulted to my Family having to flee to the US tried also tried to Unify Cyprus with Greece. 

   Turkey invaded the northern part of part Cyprus under the pretext of protecting the Turkish minority that had being there only a few hundred years and existed in the most part in harmony with the Greek majority.  But that happened after Macarios  courted the Russians for support , something the Americans would not allow.  When Turkey invaded Cyprus the American 6th fleet prevented the Greek navy from assisting.   

                      THERE WERE NO GREEK ATROCITIES , only turkish. There were no genocides commited  by the Greeks, only the turks, The greeks belong there, the turks do not.

                     THERE IS NO EQUIVALENCY BETWEEN THE TWO SIDES.  

 

 

With all due respect, I would suggest that close personal involvement in a conflict may unduly influence opinion toward one side or the other. And your shouting indicates that you indeed take this quite personally. I take that you weren’t actually in Cyprus in 1963. I wasn’t either, but from what I read from what I believe are objective sources, during the “Bloody Christmas” events of that year, for instance, there were atrocities on both sides. Earlier and elsewhere, even if the Turks burned down Smyrna and massacred that city’s Greek and Armenian population in 1922, what were Greek armies doing driving deep into Anatolia two years earlier? And so on.

 

You write that the Turks “don’t belong” on Cyprus. What do you mean by that, and where would you have them go? They’ve been there for 450 years and have no other home. Your statement has ramifications that go well beyond the scope of this topic.

 

I’m an Estonian; in 1945, Russian speakers made up less than 10 percent of Estonia’s population, and now, just seventy years later, they’re 25 percent, as a result of state-controlled population transfers during the Soviet period. Believe me, it’s hard for me to reconcile their presence there, and when I travel to northeastern Estonia and hear Russian spoken all around, I sometimes have to close my eyes and count to ten. But the truth is: except for the very elderly, those Russians were born there, in Estonia, and they have nowhere else to go. That is their home.

[sirineou]

7 hours ago, Cory1848 said:

I take that you weren’t actually in Cyprus in 1963. I wasn’t either, but from what I read from what I believe are objective sources, during the “Bloody Christmas” events of that year, for instance, there were atrocities on both sides.

During armed conflict atrocities inevitably occur.nothing in the Greek side could even begin to approach what the turks have done in the area . Greeks are accused of having executer 13 people here and 10 people there, There is no equivalent to the hundreds of thousands the turks have killed.

7 hours ago, Cory1848 said:

even if the Turks burned down Smyrna and massacred that city’s Greek and Armenian population in 1922, what were Greek armies doing driving deep into Anatolia two years earlier? And so on.

trying to liberate the area from the invaders,and prevent genocide and ongoing Ethnic cleansing?

7 hours ago, Cory1848 said:

You write that the Turks “don’t belong” on Cyprus. What do you mean by that, and where would you have them go?

Those who were there for the past 300 years can stay those who were brought in by the turkish army to increase the numbers a bolster the claim must go. Half the turkish population of Northern Cyprus , Yes half" 

was brought in after the invasion. what do you think their purpose there is? do you think they are there because turkey run out of space for them? How would you feel if the Russians came into Estonia and started importing Russians  to displace you? And if the turks delay for a couple of generations as they seem to do , does that represent a defacto replacement? because where will they go now?  

   If Cyprus wants to reunite with Greece does it have the right to do so? or will it have to bow down to American, British and turkish geopolitical interests.

  By the way as an Estonian you would understand that history is not measured in decades and a hundred years .This isn't over , not by a long shot.  

 

 

[Cory1848]

13 hours ago, sirineou said:

During armed conflict atrocities inevitably occur.nothing in the Greek side could even begin to approach what the turks have done in the area . Greeks are accused of having executer 13 people here and 10 people there, There is no equivalent to the hundreds of thousands the turks have killed.

trying to liberate the area from the invaders,and prevent genocide and ongoing Ethnic cleansing?

Those who were there for the past 300 years can stay those who were brought in by the turkish army to increase the numbers a bolster the claim must go. Half the turkish population of Northern Cyprus , Yes half" 

was brought in after the invasion. what do you think their purpose there is? do you think they are there because turkey run out of space for them? How would you feel if the Russians came into Estonia and started importing Russians  to displace you? And if the turks delay for a couple of generations as they seem to do , does that represent a defacto replacement? because where will they go now?  

   If Cyprus wants to reunite with Greece does it have the right to do so? or will it have to bow down to American, British and turkish geopolitical interests.

  By the way as an Estonian you would understand that history is not measured in decades and a hundred years .This isn't over , not by a long shot.  

 

 

And a Turk would have a different narrative, or at least a different slant. You say that the Turks who were relocated to northern Cyprus since 1974 “must go”; you say that “this isn’t over, not by a long shot.” And how would you have this “going” accomplished -- a shooting war? Who will fight it? How many people will die? How many villages burned to the ground, how many women raped? Your anger at all things Turkey is loud and clear; where does it all stop?

 

My point is as earlier -- suspended conflicts, if an equilibrium is established, are usually best left as they are. Perhaps at some later time, when regional leadership changes and attitudes evolve, a longer-term solution may present itself. Meantime, a Turkish Cypriot identity may continue to develop and even flourish. And as long as Greek Cypriots are able to continue pursuing their lives in peace, what’s wrong with that? People and places are in constant evolution; nothing ever stays the same. Königsberg and Breslau were centers of German culture for centuries; now these cities no longer exist as such.

 

I try to see things from the perspective of the powerless, who are also those who suffer the most during conflicts. I’m sure that most Turks in Cyprus (civilian Turks anyway) have no time to indulge in geopolitical tribalism, as they have to provide for their families first and foremost. Most Russians in northeastern Estonia are factory workers; they are too busy feeding their families to think much about what “country” they’re living in. I try to see them as individual human beings rather than, collectively, as some kind of enemy tribe.