Solution in Cyprus and EU membership should be an answer to enosis

Greek PM Venizelos submitted Greece’s soil demands to the Peace Conference that gathered in Paris following World War I. The following are the areas that he demanded, including Cyprus:

1- Western Anatolia (Izmir, Bursa, Canakkale, Izmit and its surrondings); 2- Pontus (Trabzon, Sivas, Kastamonu, and its surrondings); 3- Northern Epir (Southern Albania); 4- Cyprus, Rhodes, Meyisti, Crete, Tenedos and Imbros; 5- Western and Eastern Thrace.

The enosis movement was supported by the Greek Church in Cyprus, Patriarchate and Greek Government and this ideal was passed on to young minds in churches and schools causing great calamity for Cyprus for years.

In order to achieve this ideal, from 1821 onwards many attacks were conducted towards Turkish people. Enosis saw the Turkish people as an obstacle and so attacked and massacred them in 1895, 1912 and in the period between 1955-1974.

A Byzantine Greek author Tenekides states how the idea of enosis was passed on to Byzantine Greek children in 1918: "The Byzantine Greek schools were used as to spread Hellenistic thought. The Greek Cypriot teachers submitted presents, representing their unification with Greece, that was shown in a frame of flowers, during the governor’s visits. The students were lined up as a parade bearing lances and were shouting the pre-taught "Long live enosis"… (Tenekides-Chypre. Merter Sahinler. Turkey’s 1974 Cyprus policy pages 111,197, Istanbul).

The short target of enosis policy for today is to establish a Greek Cypriot Republic dominating the whole Cyprus under Greek Cypriot sovereignty and to make Turkish people a minority by making this state a full member of the EU and achieve indirect enosis with Greece.

According to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) President Rauf Denktas, "After Simitis mentioned a subconcious policy with the slip of the tongue, he tried to hide his real ideas by saying ‘EU and enosis.’"

The 1960 agreements forbid enosis. According to the agreements, Cyprus and a part of Cyprus could not be joined with another country. It is for this reason that KKTC’s close relation with Turkey is objected. In other words; the Greek Cypriots could join Greece but the Turkish Cypriots cannot join Turkey.

These are the conditions. When Simitis said enosis was achieved, he was honest and acted correctly. He neither underlined the "Turkish-Greek brotherhood sharing the two coasts of the Agean Sea" nor said "how we detached your soils nine times in 170 years." Simitis achieved enosis and the EU helped out. What needs to be done now?

We could send a protest note to Athens and Brussels, and give up Customs Union and candidacy for full membership of the EU and also annex KKTC, and could be left by ourselves. When many people would support such action, we would be seperated from the reality of the world and left by ourselves. We would boost our defence and continue to give "confidence to our friends and fear to our enemies". We could retaliate in the Aegean and organize boycott campaigns.

Maybe we couldn’t do better good for both Brussels and Athens. The proverb "Turks don’t have any other friends than Turks" is a very correct one. However, the "Americans don’t have any other friends than Americans" and "Greeks don’t have any other friends than Greeks."

Foreign politics builds up on interests not friendship. The best way to restrict enosis and to protect both Turkey and northern Cyprus would be to insist on EU membership.

If Turkey had been a member of the EU before, the EU wouldn’t have been a tool for enosis for Athens. If Turkey had gained full membership of the EU in the past 40 years, everything would have been different now.

Enosis is achieved and showed Ankara that it is essential that EU standards are conformed at once, EU norms are caught up with and full membership to the EU is gained.

The EU is not a union of Europe contrary to what is displayed. The EU is a large table for cooperation and negotiations. It neither means one piece nor one identity.

When national interests are harmonized with regional and global processes they become the red lines of the whole world. Otherwise your red lines and red lines of others could cross one another.