EU to reward Turks after Cyprus vote

Reuters ^ | 4/26/2004 | Sebastian Alison

[a_Turk]

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - Voicing exasperation at Greek Cypriots for rejecting a U.N. plan to reunite their island, the European Union is looking for ways to reward the minority Turkish Cypriots for backing the plan.

EU foreign ministers vented their frustration at Saturday's split referendum result as they arrived in Luxembourg on Monday for their last meeting before the bloc enlarges to admit 10 new members -- including a still divided Cyprus -- next Saturday.

"We're all profoundly disappointed that this historic opportunity has been lost," EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten told reporters.

"I don't think the leadership of the Greek Cypriot community have behaved well, to put it mildly -- gagging (European) commissioners' attempts to speak in the community and so on."

Patten said he hoped the EU would be able to agree rapidly on measures to prevent the economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community, subject to crippling trade restrictions since the 1974 Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus.

"There's a widespread understanding that given that the Turkish Cypriots voted so overwhelmingly in favour of an EU-U.N. plan, they certainly should not be worsted as a result of decisions taken elsewhere," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.

The roughly 200,000 Turkish Cypriots backed by a two-thirds majority U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's blueprint for a loose federation with wide autonomy for the two communities, but nearly 76 percent of the 600,000 Greek Cypriots voted against.

Their vote effectively killed the peace plan for now, with the paradoxical effect that only the internationally recognised Greek Cypriots will join the EU this week.

EASING RESTRICTIONS

The ministers were expected to issue a statement regretting it was not possible for a united Cyprus to join the bloc and sending a strong political message accepting the expressed will of the Turkish Cypriots to join the EU, diplomats said.

They would also praise Turkey for its constructive role in the process -- a small boost for its own bid to open EU accession talks next year.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, who worked hard to avoid the EU importing the 30-year-old conflict, told Deutschlandfunk radio: "The overall result is extremely negative for both sides."

Verheugen, who accused Greek Cypriot leaders last week of tricking him by pretending to support reunification only to turn against it and campaign for a referendum "no", said there was no question of punishing the Greek Cypriots for their vote.

But the executive Commission would propose ways to aid northern Cyprus and loosen the trade restrictions.

Seeking to pre-empt more far-reaching EU measures, the Greek Cypriot government on Monday proposed opening the EU market to mining materials and all agricultural and fisheries products from northern Cyprus, but not to goods with Turkish input.

Nicosia also suggested releasing some 259 million euros earmarked by the EU to aid northern Cyprus in case of a settlement, and increasing the number of crossing points on the "green line" dividing the island.

But diplomats said that at a meeting of EU ambassadors Britain, France and the European Commission said they wanted more concessions and adjourned the negotiations until Wednesday.

The diplomats said EU states were seeking measures such as opening northern Cyprus to direct international flights and shipping and allocating some of the EU aid that had been set aside to help reunite the island.

The European Parliament has already decided to investigate the conduct of the Greek Cypriot referendum following a complaint from a Greek Cypriot opposition leader.

[a_Turk]

>> They likewise undertake to prohibit, as far as lies within their power

Interpret away. That says do what you have to.

You read it too quick, or maybe speed has little bearing on comprehension in some instances.

[Destro]

Why the insults, kardassi? Any rewards will need to be approved by Cyprus so you point fits mine.

[a_Turk]

But I give you credit for actually looking it up.

[a_Turk]

Schadenfreude, you weasel. But the pendulum swings slow, and we are patient to pounce.. You know that all too well.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Treaties never give a "right of invasion".

[FormerLib]

I see you are incapable of responding without resorting to an ad hominem attack. That's quite telling, actually.

And no, you don't get to tell me what to do, think, or say.

[FormerLib]

The acts of terror have been denounced by any variety of Muslim clergy and scholars.

Then you certainly wouldn't mind naming them and supplying a few links, yes?

[a_Turk]

>> Treaties never give a "right of invasion".

Duh!

[FormerLib]

But the pendulum swings slow, and we are patient to pounce.. You know that all too well.

Oh yes, indeed we do know it well.

For those of us who forgot such examples as Smyrna, we know have the World Trade Center to remind us all too well.

[a_Turk]

Start here.

[Mortimer Snavely]

Do your own bloody research. Run a Google search for Afghanistan Turkey. You'll find that Turkey was in command of ISAF forces in Afghanistan.

[FormerLib]

I'm still not seeing anything condemning 9/11 from the Muhammedan clergy.

[Destro]

Sometimes they can't help themselves and their true nature slips out.

[Mortimer Snavely]

In Turkey any cleric supporting these Islamist nutballs gets thrown in the slammer very quickly indeed. If a predominately Muslim nation, that is, Turkey, is in charge of the entire security apparatus in Afghanistan hunting down al-Quaeda, when al-Quaeda is referred to in the Turkish popular press as al Katil, a Turkish play on words meaning "murder," what, pray tell, do you think Muslim clerics in Turkey are preaching? In other words, if 2+2=4, what would 4+4 equal?

If it is too difficult for you to understand such complicated concepts such as extrapolation, then you have a serious problem which cannot be solved on this thread or at this forum.

[Mortimer Snavely]

As I have noted elsewhere:

Being smack dab in the middle of the Eastern Med, Cyprus has been occupied and governed by anyone with the wherewithal to keep it running. The Mycenaeans, the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Hellenes, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, Richard the Lionhearted, the Knights Templar, Guy de Lusignan and his descendents, the Venetians, and the British, who got it from the Turks, have all had a hand in making Cyprus what it is today. Turks have been living there since 1571. Need I add that they have as much right to live there as anyone else?

Cyprus is not some mystically sui generis "elementally" Greek island, regardless of how big or bloody a temper tantrum enosis lunatics throw.

[aristotleman]

"Cyprus is not some mystically sui generis "elementally" Greek island, regardless of how big or bloody a temper tantrum enosis lunatics throw."

This kind of logic is not taught in school in my parts. Greek chauvinism is on the agenda, and hatred of foreign aggressors. This will change only when the EU bans propaganda form our schools.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Regardless of who have conquered Cyprus it is today what it was at least 3000 years ago - an overwhelmingly Greek island.

Nobody is proposing to expell Turks. On the contrary, it is only when others lose control to the Turks that people are slaughtered and expelled. See Armenia, Assyria, Smyrna, Trabizond, Cyprus, Cilicia, Adrianople, Constantinople, Kurdistan, etc.

Turkey couldn't stand the thought of an overwhelmingly Greek island wanting to be part of Greece.

There are more Turks in Greece today than in 1920, but there are something like 2 million fewer Greeks in Turkey. Why is that?

Could it have something to do with the fact that Greece, inheriting its principles from the Roman Empire, upholds the universality of human rights, while Turkey, inheriting its principles from the Muslim cuthroats and assassins does not?

Denial is a river in Egpyt, not an attractive charater trait in one pretending to be an intellectual and a student of history.

[FormerLib]

If it is too difficult for you to understand such complicated concepts such as extrapolation...

Gee, I bet you feel really proud when you lower yourself to act in such a manner. Fear not! I will not laugh at you as I pass you by in your new home in the intellectual gutter.

[FormerLib]

You know something, I'd refer to this guy as a horse's patoot but I know I'd only be insulting many, many horse's patoots out there.

[Destro]

Well said. There is an example of Greeks and Turks living together in harmony. It is in Western Thrace where Muslims and Christians under the Greek flag and have never had an armed uprising or a pogrom directed against each other - period. While in Turkey up until the 50s pogroms were staged that drove out what as left of the vast majority of the native Christian citizens of modern Turkey.

Greco-Turkish hostility on Cyprus is a legacy of British rule - they did the same thing in India - as a way to keep control.