Greek Cypriots are expansionist..

The reason why Southern Cyprus rejected that plan is that a ‘no’ vote carried no drawbacks. Statements like, ‘the Greek Cypriots showed that they’re not for compromise,’ are true but trivial, because it’s been known for centuries that the Greek Cypriots are expansionist rather than conciliatory. Cyprus can only be evaluated as a struggle over the ‘Greater Greece’ enosis idea fought for hundreds of years by Europe, the United States and the Greeks. Failure to see this leads to false conclusions.

In 1960-63 it became very clear who was reluctant to get along. The rights of the Turkish community, guaranteed under treaty, were appropriated by the Greek Cypriots. Traitorous assaults were made on the Turkish villages. We of course didn’t just watch it, but the attacks of Greek group EOKA (the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters) couldn’t be stopped. So what did the so-called ‘civilized world’ do to stop these attacks? All this savagery was ignored. Moreover, Turkey’s use of its guarantor right, also part of the treaties, was hindered by the US and other countries in the Western and Eastern blocks. We can’t expect Europe and the US, which failed to react to the Greek Cypriots’ terrible, unlawful actions during the Cold War, to punish Greek Cypriots for not accepting a compromise and rejecting the UN plan and then to reward the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Maybe they will first get angry and make some concessions, but soon, everything will resume as it has been.

The US and the EU guessed and relied on the TRNC not compromising, because otherwise they couldn’t abandon their assertions of ‘the North under occupation’ and consider the UN plan. But the TRNC and Turkey destroyed this game (despite the so-called nationalist voices). The EU had to resort to such a game because they were violating international law in two respects. One was the blueprint saying that Cyprus couldn’t enter any international organization without the consent of the guarantor states. The EU, which feared a veto from Greece, ignored this. The second respect is that EU’s stance towards the membership of countries with border conflicts. They also somehow forgot this principle. So under this condition, they hoped that the TRNC wouldn’t agree. If the people of the TRNC had thought and acted like TRNC President Rauf Denktas and the so-called nationalists, then the EU would have been be able to say ‘We did everything we could for an agreement. If they had agreed, then they would also have joined us as a founding state on May 1.’ Now the EU should think about what to say about their unlawful actions.”