Turkey's 40 year military aggression against the Republic of Cyprus

Submitted by Miltos Miltiadou (Cyprus), Jul 21, 2014 at 18:55

In his insightful commentary "Forty Years after the invasion of Cyprus" of 20 July, 2014, Dr. Daniel Pipes rightly reminds people of the ongoing international aggression by NATO member Turkey against the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, and comments sensibly on the 40 year military occupation of more than a third of this independent sovereign state.

However, the statement that reads "the Republic of Cyprus (the southern, official part of the island" is factually wrong and needs to be corrected for the record. The fact is that the Republic of Cyprus comprises the entire territory of the island of Cyprus with the exception of the British Sovereign Base Areas. The Republic of Cyprus also includes the area of the island that has been under military occupation by Turkey since 1974. In other words, the Turkish ocupied area of Cyprus continues to constitute an integral part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Cyprus in spite of Turkey's occupation. It too is part of "official" Cyprus. This is recognized by the entire international community except of course by the occupying power, which contemplated annexing that area, and in fact attempted its secession from the Republic of Cyprus in 1983.

This additional act of aggression failed having been universally condemned and declared "legally invalid" by the UN Security Council. The entire Republic of Cyprus, including of course the Turkish occupied area, was admitted to the EU in 2004. However, the application of the EU rules and regulations has been supended, for the time being, in the ocupied areas because the government of the Republic of Cyprus cannot exercie effective control there due to the military occupation by Turkey. It is the Republic of Cyprus that Turkey invaded, occupied, colonized and keeps divided though the force of arms since 1974. It is therefore the sovereign territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkey that needs to be liberated and reunited with the free, government controlled area of the Republic of Cyprus. It is hypocritical, to say the least, for the UN, the EU, NATO and individual states to be raising hell about acts of aggression elsewhere when they tolerate, and in some cases actually reward, Turkey's aggression against Cyprus.

How can NATO, in particular, speak with any moral authority against aggression in other parts of the world when it has never raised its voice against the military aggression against Cyprus committed for forty long years by one of its members?

Dr. Pipes is to be commended for his perceptive attention to the long standing military aggression by Turkey against the Republic of Cyprus, a tragedy that has inflicted untold suffering on all its people, including the Turkish Cypriots, and keeps this small European sovereign state forcibly divided. As he rightly observes: "The occupation that began on July 20, 1974, still brings much suffering." Let us hope that the "outside world" will at last constructively and decisively to terminate Turkey's occupation and colonization of the Republic of Cyprus and effectively solve the "Cyprus Problem" on the basis of the rule of law that should be the foundation of regional as well as world peace and order.

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