Cyprus and Nasser

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Aug 7, 2010 at 06:52

Hi Ianus

Thanks for a great reply and i indeed was able to connect some, but not all, of the dots of this tragedy and I would vote that this great response should be included as one of the outstanding comments at danielpipes.org

>But let me say briefly a few things about "what really happened" in Cyprus in 1974 in my modest opinion. I see the Turkish invasion of 1974 as a US-backed operation. Let me explain why I think so.

I very much agree with you. But it is really surprising that the rule of Nasser of Egypt and his friendship with Makarious and his unabashed support for a Greek Cyprus and his total dislike of the Turks and of CENTO is not well explored and if it did have an effect on the outcome of this tragedy after all one can also say our policy makers could have been saying the friend (Makarious) of our enemy (Nasser) is our enemy too plus Turkey had to be rewarded for CENTO and for supporting the 6th Fleet

I tried to look up the issue of Cyprus from the Egyptian prespective and there is lots written about it in Arabic but I know that there is a new biography on Nasser is in the works by a young Egyptian historian and I will be very curious to see what he finds as indeed such friendship in many ways defined Nasser and his ambitions so stay tuned

>It is a well-known fact that Turkey had been planning the invasion and occupation of a large part of Cyprus long before 1974. It must have originated even long before their failed attempt to invade Cyprus in 1964. This first Turkish attempt to occupy the island is quite interesting and instructive and I'd like to look closer at what went wrong for Turkey in 1964 to understand what went "right" for it in 1974.So I believe your question of "what really happened" might be posed differently : "Why could Turkey attack and occupy large parts of Cyprus in 1974 and couldn't do that in 1964 even though it did want to ?"

Thank you very much for a great response and when i learn more about the rule of Nasser if any in such tragedy I will let you know

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