Aristotle’s Lagoon

 

In the two years between leaving Plato’s Academy – where, following Plato’s death, he had been overlooked for the top job in favour of Plato’s nephew Speusippus – and being employed by King Philip the Great of Macedon to tutor his son, Alexander, Aristotle lived on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos, studying and categorising the island’s fauna and in the process inventing biology and zoology. Above is a BBC documentary, Aristotle’s Lagoon, in which Professor Armand Leroi, looks at Aristotle’s Mytilenean sojourn and his methods and discoveries. It’s well worth watching.

The Turkish ambassador and I: a revealing encounter with arrogance, dishonesty and resentment

I had a spat on Twitter recently with Turkey’s ambassador to Yemen, Fazli Corman, in which this senior Turkish diplomat – who has previously served his country at the UN in New York, in Canada, Japan, Oman and Greece – revealed himself to be not only arrogant, rude and dishonest, devoid of intellectual curiosity, but also someone with a severe prejudice and resentment towards Greeks. I’m reproducing the exchange below because I believe it exposes the attitudes and disposition of the Turkish state – and should leave Greeks in no doubt as to who and what they are up against.

The dispute began when I objected to an article, Turkey, the Arab world, and the myth of moderate Islamism, by Nervana Mahmoud,‏ in which the author stated that Turkey had a ‘well-established democracy’ going back to the 1950s. I tweeted to her, rather sarcastically, that this was only the case if you discounted the coups of 1960, 1971, 1981 and the postmodern coup of 1997.

Corman evidently saw my tweet and read other tweets I’d written in which I’d been critical of those who, in reporting the crackdown on anti-Erdogan protests in Turkey, had portrayed Turkey as a misunderstood western-type liberal democracy when, in fact, it is an authoritarian, belligerent, hyper-nationalist entity that bears many hallmarks associated with fascism. Corman criticised what he saw as my ‘negativism’ towards Turkey, then brought up the Akritas plan and asked, because of my moniker, whether I wasn’t somehow related to it!

Now, I know that the Akritas plan was drawn up in 1963 by minister of the interior Polykarpos Yiorkadjis in response to the build up of Turkish arms on Cyprus and the increasing threat of a Turkish invasion. It spelled out how Greek Cypriots might thwart a Turkish assault by knocking out the armed enclaves Turkish Cypriots had established before these enclaves had a chance to link up with invading forces from Turkey. I also know that Turkey has attempted to portray the Akritas plan as a Greek Cypriot plot to annihilate Turkish Cypriots and, indeed, Corman repeated this claim and stated that, between 1963-74, Turkish Cypriots were incarcerated in concentration camps and were exposed to a campaign of ‘eradication’ and ‘extermination’.

(Corman, in a tweet revealing a deep-seated resentment of Greeks, added: ‘You never miss a chance to insult us, but rather you should focus on yourselves’, before going on to accuse Greeks of being ‘obsessive nationalists’).

Rather than engage in a slanging match with Corman, I preferred to provide him with a link to the Akritas plan and asked him to show me where it mentioned any intention on the part of Greek Cypriots to wipe out Turkish Cypriots.

His reply was that the plan wouldn’t state its objective so blatantly, but that the frequent mention of ‘national struggle’ clearly proved Greek Cypriots’ genocidal intentions.

I pointed out that ‘national struggle’ at this time clearly meant a struggle for self-determination, which for Greek Cypriots aimed at the revision of the 1960 constitution, the removal of those provisions they perceived granted the Turkish minority excessive powers and which the Turkish Cypriots had been exploiting to undermine the normal functioning of the Cypriot state and to create a state within a state. I said it was spurious to equate ‘national struggle’ with a desire to eradicate the Turkish Cypriots, and, indeed, I asked for facts and figures regarding this alleged extermination of the Turkish Cypriots – you’d expect such a calculated campaign to have been well publicised and documented, particularly in the international media.

I also argued that what Corman termed ‘concentration camps’ were in fact armed enclaves into which Turkish Cypriots had wilfully retreated in order to create the conditions for partition on the ground, which Turkey would definitively impose by invasion. In 1965, the UN Secretary General, U Thant, referred to this Turkish ploy as ‘deliberate self-segregation’. In fact, I told Corman, the only plan of ‘eradication’ that existed in Cyprus was the plan for partition being followed by Turkey, in which Greek Cypriots would be eradicated from those parts of the island Turkey was expecting to annex – a plan brutally and successfully executed with Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

Unfortunately, to Corman, my measured and informed comments demonstrated that I was ‘living in a fantasy world’ and he said he felt ‘sorry’ for me. Annoyed by Corman’s boorish arrogance – and my own naive assumption that if you present someone with well-argued facts then they will come to their senses, particularly if they are a senior diplomat (who you’d expect not to believe any old rubbish and to be disposed to rational thought) – I expressed surprise that a high-ranking Turkish diplomat was ‘regurgitating risible propaganda’ and said his outpourings were what I’d expect of a brainwashed ultra-nationalist. Despite Corman showing signs of wanting to continue the argument – even if he said he regretted starting a conversation with me – I decided to end the exchange, regarding it as pointless to engage with an obtuse fanatic with no interest in truth or reasonable discussion.

1. Nervana Mahmoud: Turkey, the Arab world, and the myth of moderate Islamism http://wp.me/p1ybre-vO
   
2. john akritas: ‘Well-established democracy since 1950s?’ You mean apart from the coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980 and the postmodern one in 1997.

3. Fazli Corman: Reading your negativism on Turkey, I wondered if “Akritas” simply your name or related to that “plan” in Cyprus?

4. john akritas: You mean the plan to thwart an invasion of Cyprus that Turkey propagandistically presents as plan to wipe out TCs.



5. john akritas: I’m just skeptical of claims that Turkey is a model democracy. More like, ultranationalist, authoritarian, bellicose.



6. Fazli Corman: Did you really learn Akritas plan like this??? As I know it was a plan to exterminate & eradicate Turks from Cyprus.


7. Fazli Corman: You never miss a chance to insult us, but rather you should focus on yourselves.



8. john akritas: Not true. The plan can be read here: http://bit.ly/ZV01rZ. Please show me where it mentions ‘eradicating’ TCs.


9. Fazli Corman: Would they write it like that? What do you think is the “national struggle” that is mentioned all over?



10. john akritas: How have I insulted you? I’m a critic of the Turkish state and the inflated claims made about Turkish ‘democracy’.


11. john akritas: ‏National struggle refers to self-determination. It’s not right to interpret this as a plan to kill TCs.


12. john akritas: Read my brush with Turkey’s ambassador to Yemen @FazliCorman, who repeats outlandish claim that GCs tried to eradicate TCs https://twitter.com/Nervana_1/status/342804949593382912

13. Fazli Corman: Outlandish?? You deny a very clear fact, even not historical, since I have seen this as a kid. Concentration camps of TCs.

14. Fazli Corman: Blaming Turkey of military coups should have reminded you of your own ones. Nationalism; Greeks and GCs by far more obsessed.

15. john akritas: Concentration camps! TCs retreated into armed enclaves in preparation for partition. UN called it ‘deliberate self-segregation’

16. Fazli Corman: Whether or not you accept, it was a plan to wipe out Turks. And it was implemented between 1963-74 until we stopped.



17. Fazli Corman: Ask the Turkish Cypriots who lived in the Island between 63-74 and then speak on ultranationalism or bellicose...



18. Fazli Corman: ‏What is self-determination then? Living side by side in the Island with TCs? Is that what you believe?



19. john akritas: 1/2 Self-determination meant unitary state in which TCs had minority rights. You can’t interpret this as plan to wipe out TCs.



20. john akritas: 2/2 On the other hand, what could Turkish policy of ‘partition or death’ mean other than wiping out GCs from northern Cyprus?



21. john akritas: 1/2 There was no such plan and nothing like it ever happened. For you to make such a claim, you must provide facts and figures.



22. john akritas: 2/2 Truth is between 1967-1974, relations between GCs and TCs were improving, even if TMT was against any return to normality.



23. john akritas: And even if your narrative is correct, which it is not, it can’t justify the brutality of the invasion or 40 years’ occupation.



24. john akritas: And brutality of the invasion was no accident. It had to be this way to fulfill Turkey’s long-term policy of partitioning Cyprus.



25. john akritas: And since I dispute your TC woe narrative, I believe Turkey is on Cyprus for other reasons, to do with nationalism and undemocratic state.

26. Fazli Corman: Unfortunately it seems that you are living in a fantasy world, I feel sorry for you... Regret the time I spent talking to you.

27. john akritas: I feel sorry for Turkey if all its officials are capable of is regurgitating risible propaganda. Are you the best they can do?

28. john akritas: I expect nonsense about concentration camps and genocide from a brainwashed ultra-nationalist, not a senior diplomat.

29. Fazli Corman: I should’ve stopped responding you much earlier. But concentration camps and attempted ethnic cleansing in Cyprus are facts.

Political Activities of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, 1945-1958. Part Seven: The causes of Turkish Cypriot violence and its long-term effects

Here’s the final part in the series I’ve been publishing on Turkish political actions in Cyprus in the period leading up to the island’s independence in 1960 as described in Stella Soulioti’s Fettered Independence: Cyprus 1948-1964. To reiterate, what we’ve established is that around 1956 Turkey abandoned its policy of demanding annexation of all of Cyprus in the event of an end to British sovereignty in favour of a policy of partition, with one half of the island going to Turkey and the other half to Greece. For this policy of partition to succeed it had to prove, through the stirring up of ethnic conflict, that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and had to be separated into their own areas. From the beginning, Turkey drew up a map that carved Cyprus in two along the 35th Parallel and agitated for a ‘population exchange’ in which Greeks living in the area Turkey had set its sights on would be expelled and replaced by Turkish Cypriots (encouraged to leave from what would become the Greek area of Cyprus) and settlers dispatched from Turkey. This was the plan Turkey and Turkish Cypriot nationalists on the island sought to implement during the final years of British colonial rule; continued to pursue after independence; and was the imperative behind Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

Thus, in her concluding remarks, Soulioti makes clear that it was Turkey’s long-term policy of partition that brought intercommunal turmoil to Cyprus – indeed, the policy of partition was predicated on ethnic cleansing; how else could Greeks, who predominated by 4-1 in the areas of Cyprus Turkey aspired to annex, be made to abandon their towns and villages other than through violent expulsion? – and explains Turkey’s actions and motives in 1974.

For the other posts in this series, go here.

Some factors underlying the Turkish Cypriot acts of violence
The Turkish Cypriot attacks on the Greek Cypriots in 1956-1958 were the first instance of violence between the two communities. In view of the preceding long history of peaceful coexistence, this cannot but pose questions as to the factors underlying these actions.

It may be too simplistic to ascribe them solely to the pursuit of the objective of partition on the instigation of political leaders. The possibility that other elements, such as the following, played a part must not be overlooked: (1) the lower standard of living of the Turkish Cypriots; (2) the sense of segregation fostered by the fact that they were congregated in separate quarters in the various towns, which also made forays easier; and (3) the fear that enosis might soon become more than an unattainable Greek dream, creating uncertainty and anxiety as to their future.

The above factors may indeed have contributed to the events of that period. However, the intensity of the Turkish Cypriot assaults, their careful preparation and the statements and admissions of their leaders negate the possibility that the attacks were spontaneous eruptions of indignation at the sporadic, isolated killing by EOKA of a Turkish Cypriot serving with the British security forces.

The inevitable conclusion is that these attacks would not have occurred without incitement and direction from Turkey, to mark the initiation by Ankara of a more aggressive policy on the Cyprus Question. Moreover, the patterns adopted were those used during the anti-Greek pogroms in Istanbul and Izmir in September 1955. It is unfortunate that Ankara’s endorsement of violence and the supply of arms to the Turkish Cypriots did not  cease on the conclusion of the Zurich-London agreements in February 1959 but continued after the signing of those agreements, until the achievement of the final goal by the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

Lasting effects of Turkish Cypriot violence against the Greek Cypriots in 1956-58
The events of 1956-1958 left far deeper and more lasting scars than could have been anticipated. So much distorted publicity has been given by the Turks in later years to the events of 1963-1964, and so much more successful propaganda made out of them, that public opinion has been blinded to the fact that intercommunal strife in Cyprus was initiated as early as 1956 by the Turks themselves, not by Greeks, and that in 1963-1964 the Turks were not – as they have tried to convince the world – merely passive victims of Greek Cypriot violence, but protagonists in the continued pursuit of the Turkish  objective of partition.

In assessing the psychological climate within the Greek Cypriot community in 1963-64, the following factors (emanating from the events of 1956-58 coupled with the divisive and unworkable elements of the 1960 constitution) must be taken into account:

    •    the enduring fear struck in the hearts of the Greek Cypriots by the 1956-1958 Turkish attacks;
    •    the feeling of helplessness and humiliation caused by the fact that one-fifth of the population had succeeded in terrorizing four-fifths;
    •    the loss of life, destruction of property and ousting of hundreds of Greek Cypriots from their homes in Nicosia; and
    •    the realization that the Turkish Cypriots had emerged from the Zurich-London agreements with a manifestly unjust and disproportionate share, which they were quick to exploit to their even greater advantage.

It is important as a matter of historical truth that these facts be remembered.

Political Activities of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, 1945-1958. Part Six: The Geunyeli massacre and the expulsion of Greeks from Omorphita

We’ve now established, using Stella Soulioti’s Fettered Independence: Cyprus 1878-1964, that Turkey in 1956 settled on a plan to partition Cyprus and pursued this through a campaign of violence aimed at stirring up ethnic hostility in order to prove that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and had to be separated politically and geographically. In my previous post, we noted how Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash admitted that Turkish nationalists on the island engaged in false flag incidents as a means to instigate and justify violence against Greek Cypriots; and we noted how the anti-Greek riots of 7 June 1958 – that began with a false flag incident – represented an escalation of the Turkish tactic of fermenting ethnic disturbances. In this post, we draw attention, in another excerpt from Soulioti, to two of the most notorious acts of violence suffered by Greek Cypriots during the summer of 1958: the Geunyeli massacre and the ousting of Greek Cypriots from the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita.

Just to stress, the rationale behind this series of posts about Turkish Cypriot violence is to counter Turkish propaganda that it was Greek Cypriots who were behind intercommunal violence on the island and, indeed, this was part of an organised campaign to exterminate Turkish Cypriots and facilitate Enosis. In fact, if you go here, you can see a Twitter exchange I had today with Turkey’s ambassador to Yemen, Fazli Corman, who repeats the absurd claim that Greek Cypriots came up with a plan in 1963, the Akritas plan, the aim of which was the ‘eradication’ of Turkish Cypriots.

Read parts one, two, three, four and five in the series.

On Rauf Denktash and Turkish political consciousness, go here.

1. Geunyeli Massacre
The violence reached its climax on 12 June, when thirty-five unarmed Greek Cypriot villagers, including a boy of fourteen, were attacked by Turkish Cypriots in a field near the Turkish Cypriot village of Geunyeli. Eight of them were murdered and mutilated, while another five were seriously wounded. The following are extracts from the findings of the commission of inquiry, appointed by the governor of Cyprus to investigate the incident:

For some days prior to the 12th June, in fact from the 7th June, intercommunal feeling was running very high in the island and there had been many instances of attacks by Turks, particularly in Nicosia, upon members of the Greek community and upon Greek property.

He [Lieut. Baring, Cornet, Royal Horse Guards, one of the first to arrive on the scene] came upon the body of a man he took to be dead – ‘He was cut everywhere and you could not find a piece of flesh that was not.’

It is a fact that this party of thirty-five unarmed Greeks walked into an ambush laid by Turks who had concealed themselves and went into the attack when the [Turkish] motor-cyclists started shooting. As a result four Greeks died on the spot and four died later in hospital; five were severely wounded but survived. The attack was of a most savage nature and the injuries inflicted indicate an extraordinary blood lust.

There is every indication that it was not a haphazard affair, but was arranged in anticipation of these Greeks passing along by where the killers were concealed.

2. Ousting of Greek Cypriots from Omorphita and other areas and movement of Turkish Cypriots to the northern part of the island
For two months the Turkish Cypriot attacks continued: several Greek Cypriots and some Turkish Cypriots were killed and Greek Cypriot properties ransacked or destroyed. Such was the terror instilled in the Greek Cypriot community by the savagery of Turkish aggression that in one week alone six hundred Greek Cypriot families fled from their homes in the old sector of Nicosia, preferring to live in conditions of squalor. Empty houses were immediately seized by Turkish squatters.

During the summer of 1958, Turkish Cypriots drove out seven hundred Greek Cypriots from 170 houses in Omorphita, a mixed suburb of Nicosia, and Turkish flags were placed on them. This was the first instance in which the Turkish policy of separating the two communities and creating territorial division was applied in practice and it became a symbol of the ‘Turkish takeover movement going on all over the island’. As Omorphita was contiguous to the Turkish quarter of Nicosia, Turkish Cypriots from villages in other parts of the island were encouraged to move into the unoccupied houses of the Greek Cypriots, thus expanding the sector of the capital inhabited exclusively by Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita incident was described as follows [by Nancy Crawshaw in The Cyprus Revolt]:

On 30 June serious clashes broke out between Greeks and Turks at Omorphita, a new suburb on the outskirts of Nicosia. Troops quelled the initial outbreak. But the suburb, with its neighbour Kaimakli, continued to be the centre of intermittent communal friction for many weeks. The sight of a Turkish youth brandishing a knife over the garden wall was sufficient to set off a new wave of panic. Early in July Greek householders were still leaving Omorphita in considerable numbers by lorry. The Turks, convinced that military help from Turkey was imminent and partition a certainty, became very bold. Many of them moved into Greek houses and hoisted the Turkish flag. Troops at the time blamed the authorities for their delay in authorising the curfew. The security forces were now faced with the problem of a head-on clash with the Turks in the attempt to evict them or the virtual toleration of the illegal seizure of Greek houses. The removal of the flags led to fresh incidents and in the circumstances troops were ordered to leave them.

(Read Part Seven in the series here).

Political activities of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, 1945-1958. Part Five: Denktash admits Turks initiated intercommunal violence

Here is part five in the series I’m posting from Stella Soulioti’s Fettered Independence: Cyprus, 1878-1964. In this excerpt, Soulioti describes the admission in 1984 by Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash that Turkish Cypriots were responsible for a false flag incident in 1958 – the planting of a bomb outside a Turkish consulate building in Nicosia – that triggered a wave of anti-Greek violence across the island and irreparably damaged intercommunal relations. Denktash’s admission was made on UK TV’s Cyprus: Britain’s Grim Legacy, and the relevant clip from the programme is above.

Read parts one, two, three and four in the series.

On Rauf Denktash and Turkish political consciousness, go here.

Denktash reveals that Turkish Cypriots planted a bomb to provoke the anti-Greek riots of June 1958
The incident which provoked the riots on 7 June was the explosion of a small bomb outside the Turkish Information Office (part of the Turkish consulate) in Nicosia, alleged to have been thrown from a passing car. Even at the time it was suspected that the Turks had planted the bomb to provoke the riots.

The Nicosia correspondent of the Times commented:

The incident which began the trouble is shrouded in mystery… Whether the bomb was actually thrown by a Greek as the Turks allege, is a matter of raging controversy and the authorities have so far committed themselves to no pronouncement. Certainly, what immediately followed bore all the signs of a planned and concerted action by gangs of Turkish youths…

The mystery has now been cleared by the Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, who has made the shocking revelation that the bomb was planted by ‘a friend’ of his. This statement was made during an interview in Cyprus: Britain’s Grim Legacy in the 1984 Granada Television Documentary series End of Empire. The pertinent passage is worth quoting in full:

Narrator: [British colonial governor Sir Hugh] Foot’s friendly gestures to the Greeks only convinced the Turkish Cypriots their protectors had abandoned them. Tension mounted. On the night of the 7th June 1958 the tension suddenly snapped. Cyprus has never recovered from that night.Denktash: There was an explosion at the Information Bureau of the Turkish Consulate. A crowd had already gathered there, a crowd of Turkish Cypriot youths, and they all almost immediately decided that Greeks had done it and they were swearing vengeance against the Greeks and so on.Narrator: The explosion started a night of rioting in Nicosia. The Turkish Cypriots burned and looted Greek shops and homes. Soon EOKA counter-attacked and the violence spread around the island. Greek and Turkish families who had always lived as neighbours now moved with all their possessions into separate areas. Partition was fast becoming a reality.Denktash: Later on, a friend of mine, whose name will still be kept a secret, was to confess to me that that he had put this little bomb in that doorway in order to create an atmosphere of tension so that people would know that the Turkish Cypriots mattered.Narrator: The fighting raged for three months. More than a hundred were killed.

(Part Six to follow).

Political Activities of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, 1945-58. Part Four: Turkish Cypriot violence in pursuit of partition

In previous posts in this series based on Stella Soulioti’s Fettered Independence: Cyprus, 1878-1964, we’ve established that Turkey’s Cyprus policy envisaged partition of the island, in pursuit of which it was necessary to demonstrate that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and had to be separated into two distinct geographical and political units – this despite the fact that Greek Cypriots amounted to 80 percent of the Cypriot population and dominated in all areas of the island. In pursuit of partition, violence was used by Turkish nationalists on the island to crush dissent within the Turkish Cypriot community; to stir up enmity between Greek and Turkish Cypriots; and to create the conditions for the separation of the island’s two communities.


Read parts one, two and three in the series. 

On Rauf Denktash and Turkish political consciousness, go here.

Turkish Cypriot violence in pursuit of partition
[From] 1956 on, the Turkish leadership instituted a vigorous campaign under the slogan ‘from Turk to Turk’, advocating the boycott of Greek goods and services and forbidding cooperation with Greek Cypriots at all levels, including participation in mixed trade unions. Those who deviated were denounced as traitors and punished: two Turkish Cypriot members of a trade union were shot dead by [the terrorist group] TMT in 1958 for collaborating with their Greek Cypriot coworkers…

To bring about the physical separation of the two communities and to impose territorial division, the Turkish Cypriots, at the instigation and with the encouragement of Turkey, embarked, beginning in January 1956, on organized rioting initially aimed at the destruction of Greek Cypriot property. The object was to foster enmity between the two communities, thereby proving [Turkish Cypriot leader Fazil] Kutchuk’s premise that coexistence had become impossible, making partition the only acceptable solution.

As was inevitable in view of the large number of Turks actively participating with the British security forces against EOKA, the day came when, on 11 January 1956, a Turkish Cypriot police sergeant who had given evidence in trials of EOKA members was killed by EOKA. The Turkish Cypriots immediately retaliated by attacks against Greek Cypriot property in Nicosia and Paphos accompanied by threats against Greek lives. These were followed by further attacks on 23 and 24 April, after the killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman who had chased EOKA fighters. On 25 May, after the death of a Turkish Cypriot policeman who again had chased an EOKA fighter who had turned and shot him, extensive rioting broke out in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos, with indiscriminate arson of Greek properties. In Nicosia the Turks burst into the Greek quarter of the city and burned down an oxygen factory, battering its old caretaker to death. The Turkish mob, ‘including a score of auxiliary and special constables’, became so menacing that the British authorities set up a barricade across the old city of Nicosia (the ‘Mason-Dixon Line’, a precursor to the ‘Green Line’ drawn in December 1963). By June 1956 Turkish rioting extended to Famagusta and flared up once again in Nicosia, with massive destruction of Greek property, in January and February 1957.

The Turkish leadership had no scruples about creating pretexts for reprisals. Soon after Sir Hugh Foot’s arrival in Cyprus [as the new colonial governor], clashes occurred on 7 and 9 December 1957 between the security forces and Greek secondary schoolchildren demonstrating on the occasion of the UN General Assembly debate on Cyprus, in the course of which a Turkish policeman was wounded accidentally. A fabricated rumor that he had been killed, and killed by Greeks, formed the signal for Turkish  mobs to throw themselves into the Greek quarter of Nicosia with such ferocity that the Mason-Dixon Line had to be reestablished. Nor was calculated misrepresentation of the facts considered improper: at the United Nations on 9 December 1957, Turkey did not hesitate to accuse Greeks of killing three Turks in Paphos a week earlier, whereas they had been killed by fellow Turks who had been arrested.

What is noteworthy is that, despite the repeated, organized and violent rioting and destruction of their property by the Turks, the Greeks, although outnumbering the Turks by four to one, did not counter-attack or retaliate in any way. No Turkish property was threatened or damaged. In fact, on 3 February 1957, the Greek members of the Nicosia Municipal Council appealed to the Greek population to avoid at all costs any friction with the Turkish community.

The most violent riots were yet to come. On 21 January 1958, Turkish Cypriots demonstrated in Nicosia and Famagusta against what they regarded as the pro-Greek policy of the new governor, Sir Hugh Foot. More demonstrations, the most violent ever known in Cyprus, took place in Nicosia on 27 January 1958. These were organized to coincide with the discussion of the Foot Plan in Ankara between British foreign secretary Selwyn Lloyd, accompanied by Sir Hugh Foot, and the Turkish government. During the disturbances, thousands of Turks hurled stones and bottles at British troops, overturned and set fire to military vehicles and police cars, and erected barricades in the Turkish quarter of Nicosia, prominently displaying Turkish flags. After several attempts by British troops to break up the demonstrations, a curfew was imposed in the Turkish quarter, ending nine hours of violent rioting marked by many bitter hand-to-hand struggles between Turkish Cypriots and the security forces. Despite the curfew, further riots broke out the following day with renewed attacks on British forces. Order was finally restored on 29 January 1958. ‘The Turks were, as usual, making their stand clear by actions as well as by words,’ was Sir Hugh’s comment on the riots.

In March 1958, after almost a year of continuous truce, EOKA renewed its offensive by an intensive sabotage campaign against military installations. On 21 April 1958, however, it declared a ceasefire pending the outcome of a policy statement by the British government, whereas the Turkish Cypriots, fearing that the new British plan would exclude partition, stepped up their preparations in close cooperation with the Turkish government. In February 1958 a meeting was held in Greece between British foreign secretary Selwyn Lloyd and Greek foreign minister Evangelos Averoff, attended also by the governor of Cyprus, Sir Hugh Foot, and the head of the Cyprus Desk in the Greek Foreign Ministry, Dimitri S. Bitsios. Foot stated that the Turkish Cypriots were now armed and were receiving instructions ‘from somewhere in Turkey’, in the hope that EOKA’s truce would end, providing them with an excuse to embark on their own armed activity against the Greek Cypriots.

The next, and by far most alarming, bout of Turkish Cypriot violence erupted on 7 June 1958, shortly before what came to be known as the Macmillan Plan was announced in the British parliament. Sir Hugh records:

The Turks didn’t even wait for the Plan to be announced. On the night of the 7th June I was woken in the middle of the night to see the whole of Nicosia aflame.

He [Zorlu, the Turkish foreign minister] had, I have no doubt, known of and perhaps himself given the order for the Turkish riots and the attempt to burn down Nicosia.

During that one night of rioting in Nicosia and Larnaca, four Greek Cypriots were killed by Turkish mobs and scores more were injured. Greek properties in the old city of Nicosia were sacked, while shops, a cigarette factory, a timber yard and a Greek sports club were burnt down. The Mason-Dixon Line had to be erected again. In Larnaca, crowds of Turks invaded the Greek quarter and a number of buildings were wrecked. Further serious riots occurred on 10-12 June in Nicosia, Limassol and Famagusta, in which four more Greek Cypriots were killed and many injured. In Nicosia, where bands of Turkish youths engaged in large-scale arson, several Greek shops were burnt to the ground and the ancient church of Saint Lucas was gutted, while in Limassol and Famagusta many people were injured.

(Part five to follow).

Political Activities of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, 1945-58. Part Three: The consistency of the policy of partition

In this third extract from Stella Soulioti’s Fettered Independence: Cyprus 1878-1964, the author describes the consistency with which Turkey, having abandoned its policy in 1956-57 of demanding the whole of Cyprus be annexed to it, pursued its new policy of partitioning the island. In line with this, Soulioti suggests, Turkey regarded the 1959 Zurich-London agreements that delineated Cyprus’ independence as containing the seeds of partition, if exploited correctly.

Read parts one and two in the series.
 
On Rauf Denktash and the shaping of Turkish political consciousness, read the post here.

Consistency of Turkish Policy of Partition
The Turkish pursuit of partition remained constant  through all the subsequent phases of the recent history of Cyprus. As Hayrettin Erkmen, a member of the Turkish cabinet at the time of the Zurich Agreements [1959] and foreign minister after the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, has revealed: ‘Turkey’s posture on Cyprus might appear to be variable, but actually it adheres to a specific line.’ And he goes on to explain that when the thesis that Cyprus should be returned to Turkey failed, the idea of taksim [partition] was upheld: ‘and later we came upon the formula of a Cyprus Republic which was a kind of taksim’. This objective was paramount in Turkish minds during the Zurich negotiations.

The consistency of Turkish policy is demonstrated by the fact that, following the intercommunal conflict in December 1963, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots formally proposed to UN mediator Galo Plaza in 1964 the partition of Cyprus along the line indicated in 1957, together with a suggestion for an exchange of populations. That this line is practically identical with that where the Turkish Army finally halted in the second phase of the invasion of Cyprus in August 1974 is eloquent proof of this consistency.

In fact, between the first and second phase of the invasion, on 12 August 1974, during the conference in Geneva between the three guarantor powers, Britain, Greece and Turkey, and representatives of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, the Turkish delegation tabled a proposal demanding as a zone of Turkish control this same line. Moreover, in conformity with its 1964 proposals to the UN mediator, Turkey expelled from their homes and properties in the area occupied by it virtually all Greek Cypriots (about 180,000) and proceeded to compel all Turkish Cypriots to move to the occupied areas, while transporting from Turkey thousands of settlers.

(Part four to follow).

Political Activities of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, 1945-58. Part Two: The policy of partition

Below is the second part of the series of posts I’m publishing from Stella Soulioti’s Fettered Independence: Cyprus, 1878-1964, demonstrating how Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots developed a policy of partition regarding Cyprus and organised a campaign of violent ethnic conflict in pursuit of this objective. Partition was a revision of Turkey’s previous policy, which was that should Britain relinquish sovereignty over Cyprus, then Turkey should be allowed to annex the entire island.

(Read part one in the series here). 

Turkish Political Objective of Partition Formulated
By 1957 the Turks had formulated their political objective clearly: the partition of Cyprus, which they set out to achieve by:

    •    establishing a separate identity for the Turkish Cypriots;
    •    demonstrating that coexistence between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots was impossible, and that they must therefore be physically separated; and
    •    creating territorial division between the two communities which were interspersed throughout the island.

The above goals have persisted as the cornerstone of Turkish and Turkish Cypriot policy over the years.

The arm used to apply the policy was [the terrorist group] TMT, under the slogan ‘Partition or Death.’ The partition line was set at the 35th Parallel, dividing Cyprus roughly in half. Posters, showing the island partitioned, with the superimposed figure of a Turkish soldier, were displayed everywhere.

A booklet entitled The Cyprus Question – A Permanent Solution, issued in October 1957 by [Fazil] Kutchuk, then chairman of the Cyprus-is-Turkish Party, spells out the Turkish policy in unequivocal terms. The cover of the booklet shows Cyprus partitioned in half. The following excerpts are revealing;

Equal rights is what we want and equal rights mean nothing but partition.

Turkey has, in fairness and magnanimity, consented to Partition for the sake of permanent peace in the area. Thus, the two countries [Greece and Turkey] which are friendly frontier-neighbours will extend their frontiers across Cyprus and the Communist foothold in the island will thus be prevented and the Turkish foothold will safeguard the breathing space for Turkey and her allies in the event of war.

Such partitioning will not involve the compulsory exchange of populations. Each man will be able to live in his own place feeling assured that his country is next door to protect his rights and interests. Two responsible governments will keep the extremists in their group under constant control.

Turkey has, in fairness and in complete recognition of her duty to maintain peace in the area and good relations with her neighbours, decided to abandon her claim to the whole of Cyprus and accepted the solution of partition as a fair basis for settlement.

She [Greece] has got no case on Cyprus and… unless she consents to partition Turkey will have the right to move into the island the moment Britain withdraws.

By the end of December 1956, Turkey, being aware that Britain had begun to consider partition as a possible solution, demanded partition at every opportunity. Kutchuk, who visited Ankara (2 April-10 May 1957) to consult with the Turkish government, said in a press statement on 3 April 1957 that enmity between the two communities in Cyprus had reached such a pitch that they could not possibly coexist under the same regime, and the only acceptable solution, therefore, was partition. On 3 February 1958, on his return to Nicosia from another visit to Ankara, Kutchuk said that taksim [partition] was ‘One thousand percent certain’, and that ‘if our own force in Cyprus proves inadequate, our fatherland is ready to come to our aid’.

On 8 June 1958, the Turkish foreign ministry issued a statement that the Turkish government had come to a ‘full and mature decision to bring about the partition of Cyprus’ as the only means of ensuring Turkey’s own security. On the same day, there was a big demonstration in Istanbul in support of taksim, with speeches against Greece and Britain and the burning of an effigy of Archbishop Makarios. The speakers included Kutchuk, who stressed the impossibility of Greek and Turkish Cypriots living together and claimed the question was no longer one for the Turkish Cypriots but ‘for 26 million Turks’. Kutchuk kept up the pressure for partition, along the 35th parallel.

(Read parts three and four in series).

Political Activities of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, 1945-58: (Part One)

I wrote previously that I was going to produce a series of posts on how in the latter stages of British colonial rule in Cyprus (and the first years of independence), Turkish aims on the island – which came to be characterised by a demand for taksim, or partition of Cyprus, with one part of the island going to Turkey and the other to Greece – were predicated on the stirring up of enmity between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and the violent uprooting of Greek Cypriots from those areas of the island Turkey envisaged annexing. I also said I would draw on Stella Soulioti’s Fettered Independence: Cyprus, 1878-1964 to illustrate the precise nature of Turkish Cypriot political action and thinking during this period. So what I’m going to do is publish, over several posts, the relevant chapter on Turkish Cypriot political activities from Soulioti’s book; a book, by the way, which I strongly recommend to any serious student of the Cyprus Problem, and which I managed to pick up from here for little more than £5. Stella Soulioti (1920-2012), it should be stressed, had a long and distinguished political career in Cyprus from the EOKA period and onwards. She served in several post-independence administrations and was justice minister from 1960-1970. Her knowledge and experience of the events she describes in her book are often first hand.

Turkish Cypriot Organizations and Involvement of Turkey
The first Turkish Cypriot organization was formed in 1943 under the name the Cyprus Turkish Minority Association (KATAK), which was joined by Dr Fazil Kutchuk, the Turkish Cypriot leader who later became vice-president of the Republic of Cyprus. The activities of the association were rather insignificant, and in 1945 Kutchuk withdrew from it and established the Cyprus Turkish National Party. This gradually superseded KATAK, which was finally dissolved in 1949.

Although the general objective of these organizations was to oppose enosis and support the continuation of British colonial rule, it should not be overlooked that in January 1947 KATAK issued a statement advocating that if Britain were to leave Cyprus, the island should go back to Turkey, ‘its previous suzerain and nearest neighbour’. However, when a Committee on Turkish Cypriot Affairs was set up by [colonial governor of Cyprus] Lord Winster to inquire into the grievances of the Turkish Cypriots, the chairman declared at its opening meeting on 24 June 1948 that it was the ardent desire of the Turks on the island to live and prosper under British rule, which they wished to see perpetuated. Significantly, the young generation was represented on the committee by Rauf Denktash, who was later to become the forceful leader of the Turkish Cypriot community.

It was in 1948, after the collapse of the Consultative Assembly, that the Turkish Cypriots first appealed to Turkey for support. This approach met with a positive response, particularly among university students and the press. In November 1948, President Inonu assured a Turkish Cypriot delegation that Turkey was not indifferent to the future of Cyprus. Before the end of that year, a large anti-Greek rally staged by the Turkish community took place in Nicosia. This heralded the beginning of Turkish Cypriot orientation toward Turkey.

It is indicative of the trend of events that in 1955 the name of the Cyprus Turkish National Party was changed to the Cyprus-is-Turkish Party. This party was in fact organized with the help of an emissary from Turkey, Hikmet Bil. At the same time, a sister party was formed in Turkey itself, which Kutchuk is quoted as saying ‘would soon have half a million members, all ready to back up their brothers in Cyprus’ – and that all was done with the approval of the Turkish government. Hikmet Bil was president of the Cyprus-is-Turkish Association in Turkey, while Adnan Menderes, the prime minister, was its patron.

In the summer of 1955, the Turks also formed an underground organization, Volkan, which was later reorganized and renamed the TMT (Turk Mukavemet Teshkilati, Turkish Resistance Organization). Many members of Volkan and TMT were Turkish Cypriot auxiliary policemen. It has since become known that the organizer of TMT was Rauf Denktash. In an article in the Turkish newspaper Belge, Denktash later related that in 1958 he visited Ankara with Kutchuk and had a meeting with foreign minister Zorlu to discuss the better organization of TMT on an island-wide basis. On a subsequent visit to Ankara, he met Cevdet Sunay, who was to take a personal interest in TMT in his various capacities, as deputy chief of staff, chief of staff and later president of Turkey. ‘They gave us their most distinguished experts in order to organise the TMT in the best possible manner,’ Denktash said.

It is a fact worth special attention that, unlike EOKA [which was entirely rooted in the Greek Cypriot community], TMT was not a wholly Turkish Cypriot movement but overtly involved Turks from Turkey, and that it operated both in Cyprus and Turkey. This was formally recognized by the decision of the Turkish Cypriot Legislative Assembly, taken on 7 February 1975, to grant ‘Turkish Cypriot citizenship’ to ‘persons who served in the Turkish Resistance Organization, TMT, since 1958, in Cyprus and in Turkey’.

British Attitude towards Turkish Activities
British policy was to encourage the underground activities of the Turks and to rally Turkish Cypriot support in opposition to EOKA. It is eloquent of this policy that, while EOKA was banned a week after the appearance of [its] first leaflet and mere membership of EOKA was decreed a crime, no action was taken against Volkan or TMT, nor did the government voice any objection to the meddling of Hikmet Bil, a foreign national, in the affairs of a British colony. Worse still, Turkish Cypriots were employed extensively in the British security forces against EOKA. These consisted of a Mobile Reserve, composed exclusively of Cypriot Turks, and an Auxiliary Police and Special Constabulary which, in their overwhelming majority, were made up of Turkish Cypriots (1,700 out of 1,770), in addition to the large numbers serving in the regular police force. It has been noted that ‘as guards and escorts they [the Turks] were irreplaceable,’ and that ‘the co-operation of the Turkish community was vital to the struggle against EOKA’. It was only a matter of time before an incident would occur involving a Turkish Cypriot serving with the security forces, thereby activating riots against the Greek Cypriots.

Read Part Two in the series, The Policy of Partition, here.

Israel wary of Turkey gas role, while Russia steps up Eastern Mediterranean involvement

A couple of interesting pieces in the Israeli press that I came across over the weekend, dealing with the pre-eminent issues currently facing the Eastern Mediterranean, namely the exploration for hydrocarbons in the Levantine basin and the war in Syria.

In an editorial for the Jerusalem Post, it was argued that Turkey’s recent willingness to patch things up with Israel are an ill-disguised attempt by the Turks to get their hands on Israeli gas and, through the building of a pipeline from Israel to Turkey, implicate Turkey in Israel’s economic interests.

The editorial strongly argues against allowing Turkish involvement in Israeli hydrocarbon exports, suggesting that Turkey is not a reliable business partner; warning that Turkey may in the future undergo ‘an even more extreme Islamic transformation’ that would inevitably jeopardise Israeli interests; and concluding that any arrangement Israel and Turkey make on hydrocarbons would be entirely dependent on Turkish goodwill, which is not something Israel can rely on.

The editorial also argues that an Israel-Turkey deal would mean Israel discarding its nascent hydrocarbon alliance with Cyprus, which the author suggests would be a poor decision by Israel:

‘A deal with Turkey would undermine cooperation already fostered with the Cypriot Greeks, whose own gas discoveries are anathema to Ankara which occupies the northern parts of the island. Do we really want to ditch Cyprus in favor of an unpredictable and hardly friendly business partner? Pipelines can also be built in the Cypriot direction and another possibility is liquefying the gas and transporting it to Europe by tankers. It may be more expensive but this would be offset by the removal of pipeline security concerns. Also, Cyprus has allocated land for a liquefaction plant, which would relieve Israel of another safety headache.’

(It’s also worth stressing that Israeli wariness of Turkish involvement in the region means that Israel now has an interest in any Cyprus settlement and would oppose a deal to reunite the island that would leave Turkey with a significant say in how Cyprus is run, particularly in relation to foreign relations and hydrocarbon exploration).

The other piece of interest is from Haaretz and looks at how and why Russia is continuing to back the Assad regime in Syria – particularly through the supply of sophisticated missile systems – and the implications of this for Israel and any potential intervention by external actors designed to precipitate Assad’s downfall. Anshel Pfeffer argues that Russia’s support for Assad stems from its determination to maintain a presence and influence in the Eastern Mediterranean:

‘The reports on possible missile shipments are part of a wider move by Russia to show its support for Assad. This includes a large naval exercise in which 11 Russian warships have converged in recent days in the eastern Mediterranean, not far from Syria's shore. It is the Russian Navy's largest maneuver in the Mediterranean since the fall of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago.

‘The Russians have a clear interest in Assad's survival. He is the last secular head of state in the Arab world who isn't considered an ally of the U.S. administration or a supporter of radical Islamist movements that are also threatening Russia's eastern provinces. Assad is the last recognizable agent of Russian influence in the Middle East, and despite his closeness to the Iranian-Shia axis over the past decade, his current dire situation puts him at Moscow's mercy.

‘The Russian Navy has a long-term lease for use of Syria's Tartus port and is the only Russian military presence currently in the Mediterranean basin. Even if the regime in Damascus falls, an Alawite rump state would probably remain for a while along the coast, with Tartus at its heart. Both Assad and the Russians have a joint strategic interest in defending that bit of coast.’

Indeed, as part of Russia’s recent show of force in the region, we note that over the weekend, three Russian warships docked in the port of Limassol and were visited by the island’s defence minister, Photis Photiou who, coincidentally, will be in Russia this week for meetings with his counterparts. Cypriot press has been reporting that Russia will be requesting that Cyprus allow other ships from Russia’s Mediterranean taskforce to use Cypriot port facilities.

Turkish Cypriot nationalism and its predication on violence

There’s a lengthy interview (here) from 1996 with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash (1924-2012), which is mostly worthless and embarrassingly conducted by some Greek Cypriot who instead of taking the opportunity to expose Denktash for the nationalist fanatic he was chooses to ask him questions such as ‘Who is the real Rauf Denktash?’ ‘How did you meet your wife?’ and ‘What are your hobbies?’ (I kid you not). Like a lot of Greek Cypriots, the interviewer just can’t get his head around the fact that the Turkish minority in Cyprus developed a political consciousness and will independent of Greek Cypriots; and that the Turks on the island were never prepared to passively accept Greek preponderance, or somehow be persuaded to become less Turkish.

Indeed, in the one or two interesting moments in the interview, Denktash paints an entirely different (and largely unknown to Greek Cypriots) picture of Turkish Cypriot political consciousness as it developed during British colonial rule. Denktash laughs at the often-repeated Greek Cypriot claim that in the enosis plebiscite of 1950, a majority of Turkish Cypriots voted for union with Greece and asserts that for Turkish Cypriots accepting Greek rule was tantamount to accepting colonisation.

Denktash states that just as Greek Cypriots ardently believed that Cyprus is Greek and belonged to Greece, the Turkish minority on the island held that Cyprus is Turkish and should be relinquished to Turkey. ‘We [the Turkish Cypriots],’ Denktash says, ‘were brought up to believe that Cyprus is Turkish and Cyprus has gone from Turkey temporarily and Turkey will come back’.

The axiom that Cyprus is Turkish was so deeply held by Turkish Cypriots, Denktash says, that he was disappointed by Turkey’s decision in 1956 to change its policy of demanding Britain cede to it the entire island in favour of a policy of partitioning Cyprus between Greece and Turkey. ‘Partition was chosen by Turkey as a policy’, Denktash says. ‘We [the Turkish Cypriots] were aggrieved here, because we felt Turkey was abandoning half of Cyprus to the Greeks.’

On the depth of militancy within the Turkish Cypriot community, Denktash reveals that seven years before Greeks took up arms in the campaign for enosis, Turkish Cypriots were prepared to use violence to thwart the political will of the Greek Cypriots, who constituted 80 percent of the island’s population. ‘In the event of enosis,’ Denktash recalls telling a Greek journalist in 1948, ‘we will take up guns and go to the mountains.’

I’m mentioning all this now because I’ve been reading Stella Soulioti’s excellent two-volume work – a must for all serious students of the Cyprus Question – Fettered Independence: Cyprus, 1878-1964, in which the author provides a remarkably detailed and coherent account of modern Cypriot political history, with particular emphasis on the various plans concocted by the British colonial authorities in the 1950s in response to Greek demands for enosis and Turkish insistence on partition; the machinations that led to the London-Zurich agreements in 1959; the period from independence in 1960 to the breakdown of the constitution and the insurrection of the Turkish Cypriots in 1963; and the increasing involvement in the island’s politics of the Americans, who wanted to avoid Cyprus sparking a war between Greece and Turkey, which the USA thought could best be done by partitioning Cyprus between the two NATO allies or offering all (or most) of Cyprus to Greece in exchange for Greek concessions in Thrace and/or the Aegean, such as the ceding of Chios or Kastelorizo to Turkey.

In upcoming posts, I will draw on Soulioti’s book to illustrate how the Turkish campaign for the partition of Cyprus was predicated on violence and stirring up enmity between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Unlike enosis – which was not directed at the Turkish minority on the island but at the British colonial authorities – taksim (partition) was specifically aimed at Greek Cypriots and could only be achieved through their violent expulsion from that part of Cyprus that Turkey proposed to annex.

Castoriadis on the objectivity of the Greeks

Just to go back to a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Thermopylae, the Persian invasions and Greek triumphalism, in which I insisted that the pride and sense of superiority characteristic of Greek culture was tempered by self-criticism and objectivity, this idea is found in Cornelius Castoriadis’ essay, The Greek Polis and the Creation of Democracy (in Politics, Philosophy, Autonomy), from which the following is an excerpt:

‘Hannah Arendt has rightly said that impartiality enters this world through the Greeks. This is already fully apparent in Homer. Not only can one not find in the Homeric poems any disparagement of the “the enemy”, the Trojans, for example, but the truly central figure in the Iliad is Hector, not Achilles, and the most moving characters are Hector and Andromach. The same is true for Aeschylus’ Persians – a play performed in 472 BC, seven years after the battle at Plataea, with the war still going on. In this tragedy, there is not a single word of hatred or contempt for the Persians; the Persian queen, Atossa, is a majestic and venerable figure, and the defeat and ruin of the Persians is ascribed exclusively to the hubris of Xerxes. And in his Trojan Women (415 BC), Euripides presents the Greeks as the cruelest and most monstrous beasts – as if he were saying to the Athenians: this is what you are. Indeed, the play was performed a year after the horrible massacre of the Melians by the Athenians (416 BC).’

Turkey looks to exploit Cyprus’ economic weakness

Cyprus’ foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides was in the USA this week, where he met, among others, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry. Discussed, obviously, were the latest developments in the Cyprus issue. Where we are at the moment regarding the Cyprus issue is that Turkey, having pulled out of the UN talks last June in protest at Cyprus taking over the rotating presidency of the EU, is now pressing for their immediate resumption. 

Obviously, Ankara detects Cypriot weakness as a result of the economic crisis affecting the island and believes Cyprus is amenable to bullying and agreeing a solution compatible with Turkish aims on the island, a solution along the lines of the 2004 Annan plan. 

As I’ve repeatedly stated, Turkey’s aim is to abolish the Republic of Cyprus and strip the Greek Cypriots of the sovereignty they currently exercise, which would deny them the ability to take decisions Turkey disapproves of or regards are against its regional interests; decisions, for example, that might exclude Turkey from the hydrocarbon game unfolding in the Eastern Mediterranean in which Cyprus wants to become a key player, not only for the economic benefits that would accrue but precisely as an assertion of sovereignty and independence.

It’s in this context that the US administration rather unexpectedly invited Kasoulides to Washington and it is the Cypriot perspective on developments in the Eastern Mediterranean that the Cypriot foreign minister confidently outlined in the talk he gave at the Brookings Institution on Thursday, the audio of which you can listen to in full here.

The Eastern Question is alive and well

Below is a not entirely convincing analysis of Turkish Russophobia, which the author (Soner Cagaptay) claims is a result of Russia’s historical erosion and humiliation of the Ottoman empire and suggests explains Turkey’s contemporary reticence to over-extend itself in Syria. As I say, it’s not an entirely convincing analysis but one I found interesting inasmuch as it indicates that there is nothing new in today’s Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics – excepting, of course, the emergence of Israel – and that the Eastern Question, which began with Russia’s victory over the Ottoman empire in 1774 and came to convey the struggle for influence as Ottoman power declined, is alive and well.

Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited Ankara on April 17th, but the event went almost unnoticed. Despite deep differences between Ankara and Moscow over Syria, Turkey has refrained from rebuking Moscow. That’s because Turkey fears no country more than it fears Russia.

Ankara has nearly a dozen neighbors if you include its maritime neighbors across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Emboldened by its phenomenal economic growth in the past decade and rising political power, Turkey appears willing to square-off against any of them; Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly chided the leaders of Syria, Iran, and Iraq. In fact, none of the country’s neighbors can feel safe from Ankara's wrath – with the exception of Russia, that is.

The Turks suffer from a deep-rooted, historic reluctance to confront the Russians. The humming Turkish economy is woefully dependent on Russian energy exports: More than half of Turkey’s natural gas consumption comes from Russia. Consequently, Turkey is unlikely to confront Moscow even when Russia undermines Turkey’s interests, such as in Syria where Russia is supporting the Assad regime, even as Ankara tries to depose it.

Historically, the Turks have always feared the Russians. Between 1568, when the Ottomans and Russians first clashed, to the end of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Turks and Russians fought 17 wars. In each encounter, Russia was the instigator and the victor. In these defeats, the Ottomans lost vast, and often solidly Turkish and Muslim, territories spanning from the Crimea to Circassia to the Russians. The Russians killed many inhabitants of these Ottoman lands and expelled the rest to Turkey. So many Turks descend from refugees from Russia that the adage in Turkey is: ‘If you scratch a Turk, you find a Circassian persecuted by Russians underneath.’

Read the rest of the article here.

Author: Soner Cagaptay, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Cyprus presses Israel on energy collaboration

Cyprus’ president Nikos Anastasiades has been in Israel these last few days heading a delegation discussing closer commercial and political ties between Nicosia and Tel Aviv. Up until a few years ago, relations between Cyprus and Israel were poor, stemming from Israel’s perceived closeness to Turkey, which has been occupying 37 percent of Cypriot territory since it invaded the island in 1974. However, deteriorating relations between Turkey and Israel and massive hydrocarbon finds in the adjoining Israeli and Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zones have boosted ties between Cyprus and Israel, and although we remain cautious because the USA is acting determinedly to repair fences between Israel and Turkey and little of substance (certainly nothing irreversible) has so far materialised as a result of the improved Nicosia-Tel Aviv ties, it is obvious that Nicosia is investing a great deal of effort and hope in trying to win over the Israelis, as the article below from today’s Jerusalem Post makes clear.

Also worth pointing out is that Cyprus now seems to have decided that it will go ahead with an LNG plant to process and export its hydrocarbon resources. This nips in the bud ideas coming from certain quarters that envisage Cyprus (and Israel) building a pipeline to Turkey to traffic its hydrocarbons; a move that would have drawn Turkey into the Eastern Mediterranean gas game and provided an incentive, the thinking went, for Turkey to promote the reunification of Cyprus. However, for Cypriots, becoming Turkey’s economic satellite and trusting their natural resources to Turkey and becoming reliant on Turkish good-will would have been the height of stupidity and, fortunately, the LNG option is now being pursued determinedly.

‘Israel, Cyprus cooperation could impact gas market’
Only by combining their forces will Israel and Cyprus be able to make a significant dent in the global natural gas economy, the Cypriot energy minister stressed on Tuesday.

“We feel that through a close collaboration with Israel we will be able to be a major player in the world energy market, something that for each country individually might be too hard to achieve,” said Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis.

Lakkotrypis was addressing a group of Israeli and Cypriot business leaders and government officials at a seminar entitled “Cyprus: An International and Professional Center,” held in Tel Aviv on Tuesday afternoon and hosted by the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Cyprus Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism Ministry, in association with the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce.

While the participants from approximately 100 Israeli companies and 30 Cypriot firms ranged in fields “from milk to gas,” the focus of leaders from both countries remained largely on the Mediterranean natural resource that each of the nations has come to enjoy.

The amounts of gas discovered in each country respectively might be considered small individually, but, by working together, Israel and Cyprus have the capability to “create the third pillar of energy routes” in the world, according to Lakkotrypis.

“What an unbelievable opportunity we have as two countries to play a role in the energy market that is shaping as we speak, worldwide,” he said.

Lakkotrypis and the Cypriot businessmen and women had arrived in Israel as part of a larger delegation that includes Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and officials from the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Echoing Lakkotrypis’s comments, Anastasiades likewise stressed during the seminar that natural gas “can become the driving force” for partnership between Israel and Cyprus.

Natural gas finds from the Tamar reservoir’s 250 billion cubic-meters are already flowing into Israel, to be used for domestic purposes only. The neighboring, more than double-sized Leviathan reservoir should be providing gas within the next few years, and will likely be doing so in both an export and domestic capacity – pending government approval of an export policy.

Cyprus’s first explored basin, the Aphrodite reservoir in Block 12 adjacent to Leviathan, is estimated to contain about 198 billion cu. m. of gas and is being drilled by some of the same partners working on the Israeli reservoirs – Houston-based Noble Energy and Israel-based Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration.

There are two other clumps also slated for exploration in the Cypriot zone, under a combination of Italian, Korean and French firms.

Israel and Cyprus signed a delimitation agreement on their Exclusive Economic Zones in 2010, and a framework agreement is now underway concerning the development of cross-border hydrocarbon management, Lakkotrypis explained.

Anastasiades likewise confirmed that his administration would “remain dedicated to proceeding expeditiously with the conclusion of a framework agreement.”

At Aphrodite, the American and Israeli cohort should conclude drilling an appraisal well by October 2013, after which the team can determine for sure that its contents are proven reserves with commercial capacity, the minister said.

Gas flow from Aphrodite should start between 2020 and 2021, Lakkotrypis added.

Simultaneous to the exploration of Cypriot reservoirs, plans are unfolding to construct an onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) generation plant, in order to facilitate the export of the country’s gas.

While “the decision to go for an LNG terminal was not taken lightly” and is considered very expensive, the plant will allow for the most flexibility in Cyprus’s export options, Lakkotrypis explained.

Unlike Israel, Cyprus is not facing much resistance among its citizens toward the idea of exporting gas, as the quantities likely found in the reservoirs are “very small compared to the needs of the country,” Lakkotrypis explained.

The Cypriot government is therefore working with Noble Energy on developing its future LNG plant, which will likely be completed by 2019 or 2020. As competition around the world for natural gas surges – particularly due to the United States’ massive shale gas discoveries – moving quickly with the plant’s construction “is super critical,” Lakkotrypis said.

Uriel Lynn, president of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, emphasized that cooperation on natural gas and on other business ventures between the two countries would be beneficial “for our region as a whole.”

To further this growing partnership, an Israeli business delegation would be officially visiting Cyprus in June, Lynn said.

Christakis Papavasilious, president of the Israel-Cyprus Business Association, emphasized “the new historic era” that Cyprus and Israel are entering together, and that the two countries should rely on each other in order to push forward.

“The discovery of energy resources in our region has created a very strong impetus in our relations,” Papavasilious said. “There is no turning back.”

Gad Yardeni, president of the Israel- Cyprus Chamber of Commerce, called the gas discoveries a “gift from mother nature” and stressed the need for middlesized energy firms in both countries to pursue connections with one and other.

At a luncheon that the Cypriot president attended earlier that day in Jerusalem with President Shimon Peres, Anastasiades spoke of “inaugurating a new era” for the two countries due to the natural gas discoveries.

“We are both committed to working together and we have a common blessing in our seas,” he said. “God has blessed us with energy and it is our duty to see how we can secure each other.”

Anastasiades expressed his feeling that Cyprus truly “needs” Israel and that he did not expect Israel to need Cyprus to the same extent in return. That being said, he declared his country to be a “reliable and credible friend and brother,” and voiced the hope that both countries should enjoy stability, peace and prosperity.

Describing both countries as islands – Cyprus in the geographic sense and Israel in the political sense – Peres noted that the two nations share many similarities and reciprocal benefits.

“Without Cyprus, we would be far from Europe,” Peres said. “We see in Cyprus a friend – politically and geographically.”

In order to secure that European mainland connection, the two countries will need to work together by combining their resources to achieve a new route of energy, Lakkotrypis stressed back at the business seminar.

“None of our two countries individually can make a big difference,” Lakkotrypis said. “The quantities that we have are negligible compared to the total needs that Europe has and will have.”

“We are living in very important times, very exciting times for both countries,” he continued. “We have our fair share of challenges, but the prospects do remain excellent.”