EU-Turkey talks ‘appalling’ amid Cyprus occupation

EU-Turkey talks ‘appalling’ amid Cyprus occupation

by Andrew Brons

It is appalling that the EU has even entered entry negotiations with a country,Turkey, whose army still occupies part of one of the bloc’s current member states, writes MEP

Is it consistent for me, as a person who does not want his own country to remain a member of the European Union, to care about which countries join it? Well, a new country’s citizens will eventually, if not immediately, have the right to move freely throughout the EU including to Britain.

While I would prefer it if the United Kingdom were not a member, I have no say at all in whether or not our membership should continue. Furthermore, if it must continue, I should prefer my country to be an involuntary member of an international organisation that is more European than of an international organisation that is less European. Turkey’s people are not European by ancestry, culture or religion and not very European by geography.

Quite apart from Turkey’s ancestry, culture, religion and geography, the behaviour of its army is not exactly what we might expect. It remains in illegal occupation of a sovereign state, Cyprus, that happens to be a member of the EU. However, far worse than the mere fact of its 39 years of occupation, have been the atrocities that it has committed following the invasion and during its occupation.

According to the secret report of the European Commission of Human Rights in 1974 alone, seven articles of the European Convention on Human Rights were broken. There were murders, rapes, looting, executions of men, women and children, forced labour, torture, forced expulsions, and imprisonment in concentration camps. The report said that the object “was to eradicate the Greek population” and that the atrocities were because of their “ethnic origin, race and religion”.

It said that there were 3,000 people missing at the time of the report. While the main atrocities were committed nearly four decades ago, Turkey has allowed subsequent desecration of sacred and ancestral Greek Cypriot property, including churches and graveyards and allowed the sale of the spoils of this looting on international markets.

Turkey does not have a record for atoning for past wrongs. It has prosecuted the Turkish author Orhan Pamuk for describing the killing of Armenians in 1915 as genocide. The fact the Turkish law is mirrored by an equally insane French law that makes it an offence to claim that the 1915 killings were not genocide, does not excuse Turkey. It simply makes France equally contemptible. Meanwhile Turkey has made no attempt to return the property belonging to Greek Cypriots or even to offer them compensation.

One does not have to be a supporter of the EU to find it appalling that the bloc has been negotiating with Turkey about its possible membership, when its army is still in occupation of part of a member state. The Cypriot government was remarkably restrained during the six months of its presidency of the Council of the EU last year but the Turkish government refused to have any dealings with it during that period. Should it be possible for a candidate country to be a continuing aggressor against an existing member?

Andrew Brons is a British non-attached member of the European Parliament

via EU-Turkey talks ‘appalling’ amid Cyprus occupation – Public Service Europe.