TASC COMMENDS THE 46TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TURKISH CYPRUS PEACE OPERATION - APPLAUDS TURKISH PARLIAMENTARY UNIFIED VOICE ON TURKISH AND NORTHERN CYPRIOT TERRITORIAL WATERS, SUBCONTINENTAL SHELVES AND EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONES
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20.07.2020


Turkish American National Steering Committee - TASC (20 July 2020)

 

46 years ago on July 20, the Turkish Armed Forces carried out a rescue and peace operation on the island of Cyprus, 40 miles off the southern coast of Turkey, to protect the island's Turkish and Muslim community from ethnic cleansing and genocide, and to stop Greece and Hellenic supremacists from taking over the island. The Turkish Republic acted as a guarantor power under the London-Zurich Accords of 1959. Britain, also a guarantor power, agreed with Turkey.

The Greek Junta then ruling Greece and the Cypriot government had undertaken a policy to expel or exterminate Turkish Cypriots and Muslims, declaring, “There is no place on this island for anyone who does not constantly speak, think and feel Greek.”

TASC commends the Turkish Armed Forces which carried out a unique military intervention that actually protected human rights and democracy, matched only by the British intervention in the Falkland Islands that toppled the Argentinian dictatorship in 1982. TASC notes that British victory happened only after France disabled missiles it had sold to Argentina.

Reactively, the U.S. Congress punished Turkey with an arms embargo. Hollywood attacked people of Turkish and Muslim heritage with the racist movie, Midnight Express. In 1978, realizing that the embargo was pushing Turkey toward Russia, President Jimmy Carter wisely lifted the embargo. But in only three years, the Turks had started to catapult their defense industry into a new era of self-reliance and inter-dependence, which we see more completely today with domestically-produced, modern defense industry.

TASC applauds the Turkish Parliament's recent joint AKP-CHP-MHP-IYIP declaration in support of Turkish interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Turkish and North Cypriot territorial waters, subcontinental shelves, Exclusive Economic Zones, and international waters.

TASC commends the Turkish Cypriots for their courage and resilience to achieve equality on the island. Equality may be best achieved by complete independence, and perhaps integration with Turkey.

TASC supports the self-determination of Turkish Cypriots who seek a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation in the spirit of the United Nations Annan Plan. While nearly 70% of Turkish Cypriots voted in favor of the UN plan in a 2004 island referendum, nearly 80% of Greek Cypriots voted against it. Subsequently, and sadly, the European Union granted membership to the “Republic of Cyprus”, at the exclusion of the Turkish Cypriots.

 

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