Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kifeas]

Cypezokyli,
Why don't you come and run for president so that you go and solve the problem immediately with your bright ideas, which no one else can see and has not seen for so many years?

Do you think you are the only pro-solution person in this country or you simply think that all of suddenly you discovered the medicine of all cures?

I still do not understand what is the bottom line of all you say? What do you suggest at last? Do you want to say that the GC side did not try to build trust between the two communities? You make a mistake! Perhaps there were and still are some more things to be done, but the problem is not there at all. You simply fail to see what is the root of the problem in my opinion. It is not trust! The issue of trust is used as a cover up.

The real issue is that we have a community (it’s leadership and the majority of it’s influential political, academic, economic and media centers,) who because they feel the power of Turkey backing them up and who also see the international community totally unwilling to put an end on Turkey’s twisted and pervasive perception of what her role and rights are in Cyprus, feel the need and the right to ask the moon and the stars in order to concede to a solution. Come over and assume the presidency, if you are elected, and then go and give them all they want so that you will get us a solution. As simple as that! All the rest are theories!

Because they cannot base on any sound logic all the things they are asking, they invent all kinds of pre-texts such as that they do not trust us because we did this and that 40 years ago, they do not want to become a minority, they do not want to be dominated by the GCs, etc, etc. The real issue behind all this is that because they got used to the idea for so many years that the occupied north is rightfully theirs forever and that whatever happened to the GCs in 1974, it happened to them because they deserved it, they do not want now to loose any of these acquisitions that Turkey illegally “succeeded” for them but rather they care only to find ways to solidify and legitimize their “acquisitions.” Of course they cannot go to the outside world and tell them all these things because they know already they will be ruled out not to be acceptable claims, therefore they invent all the other pre-texts built around the issue of trust, hoping that this by itself will increase their chances. This is why they keep talking about the past so much and so often, in many cases with the most exaggerated tone and passion, so that the GC side is victimized and qualified, both in the eyes of the international community but also morally with ourselves.

If you feel confident that you can go and convince them in anything, then I will be the first one to kiss your feet.

I do not say that there are no TCs who on an individual level do not recognize the above realities and who also want to break this circle. There are plenty of them and I know many. There are TCs in this forum who understand that in order to have a solution their side should also understand the GC legitimate concerns. There are those who are the personification of the above "stereotype" as you called it, like for example Viewpoint.

Unfortunately though, the collective approach and the one of the TC leadership, is still along the lines of what I described above.

It is like some GCs who got used so much with running the affairs of the RoC alone for so many years, that they feel paralyzed in front of the idea that they will have to share part of the country's running together with the TCs. As a result they would rather side with the idea of partition, even though this will mean the loss of a part of their homeland.

The same happens with the TCs, but in their case it is much more overwhelming. They have been exposed to a 40 years of Denktashic and mainland Turkish nationalistic brainwashing that, even though they "convinced" him to step on the side, still his rhetoric and his righteous preaching of all these years are whistling in the majorities ears and became part of their subconscious. There are though many educated TCs, in the right sense of education (paedia,) who understand these phenomena but it is very difficult for them to break the cycle. Furthermore, they have to face the rhetoric and conditioning of those from mainland Turkey who play with their emotions and do not let them free to think alternatively.

[Viewpoint]

here goes , you asked for this, your pathetic attempt at evaluating what we think, argue and what we want is beyond normal thought patterns and reeks of venom, vengence, hatred and utter denial of reality, you are frighteningly dangerous.

Why the hell you want to reunite with TCs is beyond belief??? as long as you think the way you do we will never find a solution.

[Piratis]

Why the hell you want to reunite with TCs is beyond belief???

Viewpoint, is it so strange for you that we want to take our land back?

yet there are two ways to treat sth which we are not sure about the cure.
either wait and hope that it will cure by itself
or try sth with the possibility to fail

WHo said we are not trying? We just believe that the best ways of trying are different than what you think.
For me our energy is much better spend on trying to make the occupation as costly as possible for TCs and Turkey, rather than wasting our time talking with some puppets of Turkey that can not take any decisions anyways.

why the hell do we want to make a state with them?
say it to them. its because we dont have another choise
say it to your brothers kifeas.

What we want is to live in a normal democratic state were human rights are respected. People in countries do not choose their compatriots. They don't go to the people shopping mall and say "ok, I want to make a country with this person and that and the other one". The people of the country can be anybody and they don't even have to like each other too much. (do you like all Cypriots, or even all GCs?). However all citizens of the country are equal, and they all have to respect the laws of the country. This is what we expect from TCs. Some TCs we like some we don't (the same with GCs) but this is beyond the point. Everybody has to respect the laws.

i say lets try. lets meet. lets give them a fucking chance.

A chance for what? Don't they insist that "TRNC" exists? Don't they declare that the only solution they will ever accept is a partition (or a disguised one like the annan plan). If they say that they are ready for a solution that will truly unify Cyprus without racial discriminations and human rights violations then our politicians should stop everything else they are doing and start intense discussions with the TCs. But since a form of partition is the only thing they are interested in, then why should our politicians waste their time? We can chat here for ages, thats fine. But they are paid thousands of pounds to do some work, and I would hope they would do something more productive for that money than just wasting their time with useless discussions with people that have no interest in a true unification of Cyprus.

[cypezokyli]

For me our energy is much better spend on trying to make the occupation as costly as possible for TCs and Turkey, rather than wasting our time talking with some puppets of Turkey that can not take any decisions anyways.

ok then.
lets make it costly for them
lets make them pay.
thats is how we will convince them to abandon turkey and join us in one country.
and ofcource the more they pay the more they will be willing to live with us.
but ofcource, when the balance of power shifts towards us we will not even ask them.

good luck.

would i be a traitor if i dont participate?

[Piratis]

ok then.
lets make it costly for them

According to you we shouldn't? They can illegally occupy our land, forbidding our refugees to return to their own homes and they should have no consequences for this?

cypezokyli, in most cases you like to present yourself as a realist. However the way you approach this issue is very outopian. Do you think that TCs will be more likely to accept a true unification if:

a) They have no consequences from their illegal occupation. We treat them like we recognize their authority over 1/3rd of the land of Cyprus and they are free to trade and act as an independent country.

OR

b) They have consequences for their illegal actions. They have a lot less benefits than what they would have in a truly united Cyprus.

With "a" TCs will love us. But this "love" will not be translated in a compromise. Why compromise when without compromising they can have the same or even more?

With "b" they might not love us, but they will respect us more (even if they will not admit it). We can still help them in many ways but not to the degree that they get any kind of recognition. They can get RoC passports, they should be able to do trade by using RoC ports, they can work in the free areas, they can have benefits from being EU citizens etc. In general things that will make it more beneficial for TCs to "side" with RoC rather than with the puppet pseudo state of Turkey.

Coming back to the "a" or "b" question, a good example is the one of EU and Turkey. Does Turkey want to join the EU because they love Europeans or because it is more beneficial for them to do so?
What if EU was giving to Turkey all the benefits of being an EU member from now without asking from Turkey to make any kind of improvements and compromises? Turks would love them! Do you think this is what EU should do?

[cypezokyli]

i dont know if i am utopian or realist...lets see
u propose

) a.They have no consequences from their illegal occupation. We treat them like we recognize their authority over 1/3rd of the land of Cyprus and they are free to trade and act as an independent country.

OR

b) They have consequences for their illegal actions. They have a lot less benefits than what they would have in a truly united Cyprus

firtsly. in vps suggestions i already told him that : the embargo and the recognition of the TRNC is not possible bc that is the only way to put them on the negotiating table. iam not sure if u read that. scroll back and u will find it.

we have three impartant tools on our side
1. that TRNC is not recognised
2. the embargo
3. the EU accesion

the embargo hurts the tcs directly, while it doesnt do much against turkey or the turkish army.
the EU advantage i am seriously starting to doubt. as you see our best objective is that turkey recognizes a country which is about to sign a customs union with. not the solution.
we can achieve something that it should be clear according to the law, after 15 years, and that, is not the solution.

the embargo thing... it worked and the tcs are fed up with it.
the challange for me is who they get to blame.
the tcs could say, its the turkish armys fault it should leave
or
its the gc fault.
if we dont do sth to convince them otherwise (as we dont) then its quite likely that after a while they will view this whole thing nationalistically, and simply reject any proposed plan.
and dont forget, the tango needs two.

the second thing with the embargo is that it whithers away.
their income is imporving.
the main industry is the construction which happens on gc property as well (that is why, i dont find vp idea of shifting that boom to another industry that horryfying. let aside that this will have concequences on the next solution. sth which u consider naive)
let me also tell you that after the borders opened i have seen in germany in travel agencies advertisements of the kind "borderloss cyprus" 3 days in larnaka two in paphos two in kyrenia.
after the opening of the borders and the NO, the tc economy is improving despite our attempts to make them pay.

my point is, that our advantages are withering away.
that by making tc pay and not turkey (which we cannot) the most likely thing is that we will turn them against us.
thats is why i believe that we should harry up.
because just like tassos was promising i didnt get a country to give a community. next week we enter the EU.
it could be that another tc tassos sais after 20 years...we have waited for 50 years, why should we give up everything now? wait some more and will get independant.

utopian or realistic?
i dont mind any of the two

[Viewpoint]

cypezokyli you are obvioulsy a realist and open to compromise which many GCs are not, they look at issues with blinkers and cannot comprehend or understand that the Cyprus issue is unique and needs to be resolved with visionary ideals what may not be taken from text books, life is not always black and white.

You have encountered a great deal of arrogance and belittling by GC forum members and you are a GC, how do you think TCs feel going against such condesending and unflexible attitudes, its like banging your head against a brick wall, you can only do this so much after a while you will get a headache and just walk away...GCs have to come to terms with the facts and address those rather than quote the cliche arguements of international law and human rights they constantly quote as a means to getting what they want. These issues and many more can only be resolved through genuine negotiations and the results may not be as perfect as either side would want but this is called compromise,the Annan plan was one example, if the 2 communites are not prepared to do this then we have no alternative but to continue as we are, then just maybe one day in the future TCs will take their rightful place in the international community. We are seeing signs of this every day as officials from EU USA UK continue to visit the TRNC and conditions continue to improve in the North.

[Piratis]

firtsly. in vps suggestions i already told him that : the embargo and the recognition of the TRNC is not possible bc that is the only way to put them on the negotiating table. iam not sure if u read that. scroll back and u will find it.

And what did VP said? Does he accept to make any positive steps (e.g. return some land) without their "TRNC" getting something that would in effect equal to recognition? I read what you wrote. I am afraid you do not understand what VP asks for though.

the embargo hurts the tcs directly, while it doesnt do much against turkey or the turkish army.

So? The TCs according to you (who in their majority support their "TRNC") should not have any consequences? If they reject the "TRNC" and they join us in the fight against Turkey then I would agree. However now they don't do that and they would be more than glad to keep the properties that were stolen from us. So why shouldn't they have any consequences for their actions and choices?

the EU advantage i am seriously starting to doubt. as you see our best objective is that turkey recognizes a country which is about to sign a customs union with. not the solution.
we can achieve something that it should be clear according to the law, after 15 years, and that, is not the solution.

We have a veto power over the Turkish accession. Recognition is something we are asking now and expect it to be one step that the Turkey should make. Don't confuse this step with our final aim. Turkey will never enter the EU without the solution of the Cyprus problem.

the embargo thing... it worked and the tcs are fed up with it.
the challange for me is who they get to blame.
the tcs could say, its the turkish armys fault it should leave
or
its the gc fault.
if we dont do sth to convince them otherwise (as we dont) then its quite likely that after a while they will view this whole thing nationalistically, and simply reject any proposed plan.
and dont forget, the tango needs two.

So you agree that the embargo thing worked, right? The way it worked until now it will continue to work in the same way. TCs like VP will say anything in order to get this embargo lifted. If we followed what they said today we would have 2 separate states in Cyprus.

after the opening of the borders and the NO, the tc economy is improving despite our attempts to make them pay.

This is due partly to our own decisions. We could for example stop TCs from crossing to the free areas, not to give them free health care, not to allow any trade with us etc. However as I said before: "We can still help them in many ways but not to the degree that they get any kind of recognition. " And this is what we do.

If they can manage to do more than what we would like (e.g. sell Greek Cypriot property) this doesn't mean we should help them to do more of the things we wouldn't like, right? Instead we should work in order to limit those things.

my point is, that our advantages are withering away.

We could change that to a big degree if we wanted. You think we should?

that by making tc pay and not turkey (which we cannot) the most likely thing is that we will turn them against us.

Turn them against us? Dude, they are illegally occupying our homes They ARE against us!!!!!

One thing is to show them they have nothing to fear from us and that they can work with us, live with us, have benefits from RoC and EU etc, and a whole another thing is to let them keep our land without any consequences.

utopian or realistic?

What is utopian is you thinking that TCs will want union because they like us. They will want union if it serves them better, for no other reason. The example of Turkey/EU I gave you in my previous post is a good example of this. Another example: If all TCs were like VP do you think that I would want a united Cyprus or I would prefer partition because a don't like VP that much? Believe me my friend, the how much they like us is not as relevant for the solution as they let you believe.

We want them to like us, sure, but for the right reasons. Not because they like on how nice it is that they can gain on our loss and we would not even try to stop them.

[sadik]

As they say in Turkish, siz bir yana, biz bir yana...you to one side, we to the other...Contrary to popular belief, distance is a good way to maintain a friendship...in other words, stay out of my backyard and we will be good neighbors. There can only be a two state solution. One cannot make a single nation out of two totally diverse peoples...Greeks and Turks can no longer live together side by side, and cannot form a single nation any more than Israelis and Palestinians can. The TRNC exists, folks...deal with it!

Hi Azeroglu,

We are not like Palestinians and Israelis. We have many things common in our culture and a history of 500 years of coexistence. Moreover, our ways of life and our future expectations are very similar. Even non-Cypriot Turks and Greeks are converging once again on the path of the EU.

As a community, we can have the maximum political power and maximum influence in a united Cyprus. Only in a united Cyprus we can preserve our identity as Turkish Cypriots, otherwise we will either be absorbed by the GCs or Turkey. Only in a united Cyprus we can have a strong voice for our future. Let's face it, even if the TRNC is recognized, it has very little chance of staying independent.

Seperation is not a desirable thing for Turkish Cypriots.

[BirKibrisli]

I have just read this whole tread in one sitting.I am in awe of all that energy that you guys are putting into arguing your points.Here is a quick response,and I will try not to be too utopian this time.Viewpoint is right when he says the key to reuniting Cyprus is building trust between the two communities.But Piratis and Kifeas is right too when they argue this should not be at the expense of GCs' human rights.The solution to the Cypro will have to involve acknowledging the wrongs that were done by both sides,trying to reverse what wrongs can be reversed,and compensate what wrongs cannot be corrected. If Kifeas want to return to his home in the North he should be able to,and if I want to return to my village in the South and salvage what I can I should be able to as well.
But should we expect Kifeas to live under the "TRNC" and hope that he will be happy he is back at home.I would think not.Can I realistically return to my village in the South if nobody else wants to come with me,and live like Don Qiote fighting with the gosts of the past.I would think not.Yet,no other solution will satisfy me.I don't want to live anywhere else in Cyprus.I want to go back home,but a home where I can sleep well at night,where I don't have to worry about some lunatic slitting my throat at night.We need a solution where kifeas will feel at home in the North and I in the South.And that can only happen in a united Cyprus where one government rules equally justly one nation called the Cypriot nation. Those who feel more Turkish or Greek than Cypriot can go and live in Turkey and Greece and let us get on with our lives.But how do we go from where we are to that Cyprus where we all feel secure and respected and trusted,where we are all proud members of one nation.Where we all speak at least three languages,and where we keep religion in its proper place ie in peoples hearts.Bugger if I know.But I feel we'll have a better chance of achieving such a homeland if we have more people thinking like Cypezokyli.We need to give peace a chance which means we need to be prepared to forget and forgive a lot of wrongs done to us by the other side,for the sake of trust and respect that Viewpoint is talking about.Without that I am afraid we will still be crying for our homeland in 30 years time, as I do often these days when I read some of the threads in this forum.