Turkish airline company Atlasjet launched flights between TRNC and Beirut, Lebanon via southern province of Adana as of July 3.
LEFKOSA
Turkish airline company Atlasjet launched flights between Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and Beirut, Lebanon via southern province of Adana as of July 3.
The flights are being held on Tuesdays and Fridays.
TRNC Tourism, Environment and Culture Minister Unal Ustel said that these flights would contribute to improvement of tourism and education sectors as well as commercial relations between TRNC and Lebanon.
The number of foreign tourists visiting TRNC in the first six months of 2012 rose by 20 percent, Ustel said.
133 victims of Bloody Christmas remembered, Greek Cypriot authorities told to recognise and apologise for the attacks
British Turkish Cypriots, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, representatives from the Turkish embassy and many others tonight braved the severe winter weather to hold a vigil outside the Greek Cypriot embassy in central London. The action, organised by human rights group Embargoed!, recalled the start of the Cyprus Conflict 47 years ago when Turkish Cypriots were murdered and thousands were forced from their homes by Government forces. A candle was lit for each of the victims, while activists demanded the Greek Cypriot authorities ‘tell the truth’ about the attacks. The vigil concluded soon after 9pm following a two minute silence.
The small but poignant vigil, attended by nearly 40 people, marked the brutal assault against Turkish Cypriots between 21 and 31 December 1963, a period dubbed as “Bloody Christmas” by the international media. Embargoed! displayed photos and details of each of the 133 civilians killed or abducted at this time, with a candle dedicated to each victim. The striking display attracted the interest and sympathy of passers-by, while leaflets distributed included details about these attacks including how a further 20,000 people fled for their lives, forced to take refuge in make-shift camps.
Timed to coincide with the Republic of Cyprus’ fiftieth anniversary of independence, the action forms part of Embargoed!’s year-long campaign called 50 Dark Years – Tell the Truth!. The group are demanding the Greek Cypriot authorities ‘come clean’ about the suffering they have inflicted on Turkish Cypriots. Tonight’s vigil is also intended to remind media and political commentators that the Cyprus Conflict started in 1963 and not, as is often stated, in 1974.
Lord Maginnis praised Embargoed! and other British Turkish Cypriots for their dedicated efforts to highlight the past and present injustices in Cyprus, “I have huge sympathy for the Turkish Cypriot people. Their long years of suffering, persecuted by the Makarios regime and living under embargoes since 1964 simply because they refuse to give up their fundamental rights, is totally unacceptable.”
Embargoed! spokesperson Ismail Veli said, “This small and dignified vigil remembered the 133 civilians brutally murdered simply for being Turkish Cypriot. Victims such as 10 year old Ayse and her grandmother Ayse Hasan Buba, who were buried alive in Ayvasil. All we want is for the Greek Cypriots to acknowledge the terrible wrongs they have committed against Turkish Cypriots.” He added, “A few months ago we launched the campaign with just a handful of people. Tonight we are back with far more – our campaign will only get bigger if they (Greek Cyprus) fail to do the decent thing and apologise.”
Turkey’s environment minister said that Turkey would bring water to Cyprus through pipelines beneath the sea.
Turkey’s environment minister said on Wednesday that Turkey would bring water to Cyprus through pipelines beneath the sea.
Minister Veysel Eroglu defined the project a difficult one, and said it would be the first of its type in the world.
“Thus, we will be connected to Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) with water,” Eroglu said during his meeting with TRNC’s Tourism, Environment and Culture Minister Kemal Durust in Ankara.
Eroglu said Turkey hoped to solve Cyprus’ water problem, and tenders had been opened for the project–the first step of which was Alakopru Dam.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would lay the foundation of the dam on November 3, Eroglu also said.
Another dam named Gecitkoy will also be constructed within the framework of the project aiming to carry water from Turkey to TRNC through pipelines beneath the sea. The tender for the Gecitkoy dam will be held as soon as possible.
Alakopru dam is expected to be constructed within four years and Gecitkoy within three years.
Most of us remember the Jennifer Lopez called off a controversial birthday show in the north of Cyprus, provoking celebrations by Greek Cypriots and condemnations from Turkish Cypriots. Greek Cypriot online campaign pushed Jennifer Lopez to cancel her performance at a hotel in Northern Republic of Turkish Cyprus.
The Cyprus issue is crystal clear; Turkey intervened to the Cyprus at 1974 after Eoka terrorism took so many innocent lives of Turks and British people.
If Jennifer Lopez and her team were kind enough to make a little bit of research, they would certainly understand the severity of the mistakes they have made. Moreover recent BBC records that were published may have helped Jennifer Lopez and her team to understand this important matter.This is a matter of human rights.
We are calling Jennifer Lopez and her team to act
We are calling them to act now
We are calling them to take the side of good
For this London may be the right place, where many Turkish Cypriots live. Jennifer Lopez and her team can celebrate an important event with the Turkish Cypriot Community in London to show the world that they are not involved in politics and they support human rights.
Ankara’s recent condemnation of Jerusalem is hypocritical
By Daniel Pipes
Cyprus/Gaza
In light of Ankara’s recent criticism of what it calls Israel’s “open-air jail” in Gaza, today’s date, which marks the anniversary of Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus, has special relevance.
Turkish policy toward Israel, historically warm and only a decade ago approaching full alliance, has cooled since Islamists took power in Ankara in 2002. Their hostility became explicit in January 2009, during the Israeli-Hamas war. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan grandly condemned Israeli policies as “perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction” and even invoked God (“Allah will … punish those who transgress the rights of innocents”). His wife, Emine Erdogan, hyperbolically condemned Israeli actions as so awful they “cannot be expressed in words.”
Their verbal assaults augured a further hostility that included insulting the Israeli president, helping sponsor the “Freedom Flotilla” and recalling the Turkish ambassador.
This Turkish rage prompts a question: Is Israel in Gaza really worse than Turkey in Cyprus? A comparison finds this hardly to be so. Consider some contrasts:
c Turkey’s invasion of July-August 1974 involved the use of napalm and “spread terror” among Cypriot Greek villagers, according to Minority Rights Group International. In contrast, Israel’s “fierce battle” to take Gaza relied on only conventional weapons and entailed virtually no civilian casualties.
c The subsequent occupation of 37 percent of the island amounted to a “forced ethnic cleansing,” William Mallinson said in a just-published monograph from the University of Minnesota. In contrast, if one wishes to accuse the Israeli authorities of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, it was against their own people, the Jews, in 2005.
c The Turkish government has sponsored what Mr. Mallinson calls “a systematic policy of colonization” on formerly Greek lands in Northern Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots in 1973 totaled about 120,000 people; since then, more than 160,000 citizens of the Republic of Turkey have been settled in their lands. Not a single Israeli community remains in Gaza.
c Ankara runs its occupied zone so tightly that, in the words of Bulent Akarcali, a senior Turkish politician, “Northern Cyprus is governed like a province of Turkey.” An enemy of Israel, Hamas, rules in Gaza.
c The Turks set up a pretend-autonomous structure called the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.” Gazans enjoy real autonomy.
c A wall through the island keeps peaceable Greeks out of Northern Cyprus. Israel’s wall excludes Palestinian terrorists.
And then there is the ghost town of Famagusta, where Turkish actions parallel those of Syria under the thuggish Assads. After the Turkish air force bombed the Cypriot port city, Turkish forces moved in to seize it, thereby prompting the entire Greek population (fearing a massacre) to flee. Turkish troops immediately fenced off the central part of the town, called Varosha, and prohibited anyone from living there.
As this crumbling Greek town is reclaimed by nature, it has become a bizarre time capsule from 1974. Steven Plaut of Haifa University visited and reports: “Nothing has changed. … It is said that the car distributorships in the ghost town even today are stocked with vintage 1974 models. For years after the rape of Famagusta, people told of seeing light bulbs still burning in the windows of the abandoned buildings.”
Curiously, another Levantine ghost town also dates from the summer of 1974. Just 24 days before the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Israeli troops evacuated the border town of Quneitra, handing it over to the Syrian authorities. Hafez Assad chose, for political reasons too, not to let anyone live in it. Decades later, it too remains empty, a hostage to bellicosity.
Mr. Erdogan claims that Turkish troops are not occupying Northern Cyprus but are there in “Turkey’s capacity as a guarantor power,” whatever that means. The outside world, however, is not fooled. While Elvis Costello recently pulled out of a concert in Tel Aviv to protest the “suffering of the innocent [Palestinians],” Jennifer Lopez canceled a concert in Northern Cyprus to protest “human rights abuse” there.
In brief, Northern Cyprus shares features with Syria and resembles an “open-air jail” more than Gaza does. How rich that a hypocritical Ankara preens its moral plumage about Gaza even as it runs a zone significantly more offensive. Instead of meddling in Gaza, Turkish leaders should close the illegal and disruptive occupation that for decades has tragically divided Cyprus.
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/19/turkey-in-cyprus-vs-israel-in-gaza/, 19 July 2010
