Bulgaria goes to the polls for the 7th time

During the first Karabakh war of the early 1990s, Armenian forces not only won control over the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) but also occupied seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan, forcing up to 700,000 inhabitants to flee. The occupation of Azerbaijani lands prevented the establishment of diplomatic relations between Türkiye and Armenia, and after the occupation of Kalbajar in 1993, Türkiye closed its land borders with Armenia.

In 1993, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed four resolutions – 822, 853, 874, and 884 – demanding the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces, but for 27 years these calls fell on deaf ears while U.S., French, and Russian diplomats attempted to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

Though the seven regions were expected to be returned in most of peace proposals put on the table before the sides, a policy to settle Armenians from Armenia and its Diaspora in those territories instead raised many doubts that that they would. Even in 2008, a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on “The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan”  emphasized the breach of international humanitarian law and the “the situation resulting from the occupation of the territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan.”

Between 30 January and 5 February 2005, a fact-finding mission conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) undertook a visit to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The mission’s primary achievement was the publication of a report that meticulously assessed the situation on the ground. The report’s significant finding was the identification of illegal Armenian settlers in the occupied territories, substantiated by concrete evidence gathered during the mission’s visit.

It should be remembered that the 6th paragraph of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, also ratified by Armenia, clearly forbids an occupying power from deporting or transferring its own civilian population to the occupied territories.

Evidence of Illegal Settlement in the Occupied Territories

A 2016 report by Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry presents ample evidence of Armenia’s extensive alterations in the occupied territories. These changes encompassed various sectors such as energy, agriculture, social welfare, residential areas, and transportation infrastructure.^[1]

Prioritizing infrastructure development in the occupied territories was explicitly aimed at attracting and retaining illegal Armenian settlers in those areas. Economic activities initiated by these settlers led to the encroachment upon land, natural resources, as well as public and private assets belonging to Azerbaijan and those Azerbaijanis forced to flee.

Regardless of its own demographic problems, the Armenian authorities encouraged people from the villages and cities of Armenia to live in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Technical, material and financial support for settlement projects in formerly occupied regions of Azerbaijan were financed from the budgets of various ministries of Armenia, including the then Ministry of Diaspora.

The main purpose of this policy was to preserve the status quo and create a fait accompli for the future negotiations, create a new demographic situation in the occupied lands, erase the historical and cultural heritage of Azerbaijan, and ultimately prevent Azerbaijan’s efforts to liberate the occupied territories and  return the Azerbaijani internally- displaced persons (IDPs)  to their homes. One example of this was the erasure of traces of Azerbaijanis in the occupied territories by changing their geographical names. According to the Institute of Geography of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences in 2013, 277 geographical names were changed.

Exploiting Nationalism and Social Vulnerability to Attract Settlers

In an attempt to appeal to nationalist emotions and thus attempt to encourage more Armenians to move to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, Armenia resorted to tactics such as replacing Azerbaijani toponyms with those possessing historical connotations for nationalist Armenians. For example, the name of the village of Jahangirbeyli in the Zangilan district of Azerbaijan was changed to Van after the occupation.

In November 2001, the separatist regime in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan decided to establish the Department of Migration and Settlement, the main work of which was the implementation of the settlement policy. A ten-year program for 2001-2011 was developed. Under this program, it was planned to increase the population to 300,000 in the formerly occupied territories of Azerbaijan and former NKAO during the mentioned period.

Those who migrated from the cities and villages of Armenia to the occupied lands of Azerbaijan were mainly people in a poor financial situation. They were given land for agriculture and animals for farming, but it was also not easy for some of the people from the cities of Armenia to adapt to these conditions. Most had lived in urban centers all their lives and were not familiar or experienced with agriculture and animal husbandry.

The Serobyan family moved from Charentsavan, an Armenian town, to Kalbajar, the formerly occupied region of Azerbaijan, in 1999.  Their decision to move to Kalbajar was because of the difficult social conditions they faced in Armenia. During an interview in 2007, Roza Serobyan described the conditions they moved to, mentioning that conditions in Kelbajar, which Armenians had renamed Karvachar, were particularly difficult.^[2]

While the Armenian government claimed its policy was to resettle Armenian refugees from Baku, Sumgait and other regions of Azerbaijan to the occupied regions of Azerbaijan, very few joined this settlement program.

“Not many came because they were used to their life in Baku and Sumgait. Many now feel safer in Armenia, and like a million other Armenians, some have left for Russia,” said Zoric Irkoyan who moved from Yerevan to Lachin in 1995 where he worked as a senior education specialist.^[3]

Armenia and diaspora groups instead encouraged Armenians from Syria and Lebanon to settle in the occupied lands. Armenian parliamentarians for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun, Vahan Hovhannesyan and Lilit Galstyan, launched an initiative called ‘Help Your Brother ‘ to raise funds for the settlement of Syrian Armenians in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

False Promises

Few, however, came to populate the occupied territories and those that did were not prepared for the difficult environment of destroyed villages and towns that they would discover. For example, the first illegal settlers from the Middle East to the occupied territories had already come from Lebanon and Syria in 1999. Numbering around 30 people, they were members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation  – Dashnakstutyun and settled them in the village of Meşediismayilli in the occupied Zangilan region. The name of the village was changed to Ditsmayri.

Even though the Armenian government and the separatist regime of Karabakh promised free electricity before the settlement, this did not happen. The electricity of these settlers, whose debts accumulated because of difficulty in paying, was cut off. One of those who settled in the village of Meshediismayilli was Nazareth Libaridian, a relative of Gerard Libaridian, the adviser to the former president of Armenia, Levon Ter Petrosyan.

Nazareth Libaridian moved to the village from Beirut in 1999 where he began to engage in grape growing and winemaking. In an interview with the Armenian media he spoke about how one night  the separatist regime officials cut off electricity in the village. The head of the village, Razmik Kurdian, had moved to Meshediismayilli from Lebanon.

This land was paid for in blood, and will only be given back with blood. If anyone ever thought of returning this land, they would be betraying the memory of those who died,” he said during one interview^[4] in the early 2000s, but conditions became so unbearable in Meshediismayilli  that he left soon after. Due to accumulated debts and problems with roads and transport to and from the village, many illegal settlers from Lebanon and Syria also left.^[5]

Exploiting Refugees

Armenia saw an opportunity for the settlement of Syrian Armenians, particularly in the  Lachin, Gubadli, Zangilan, Jabrail districts of Azerbaijan, due to their experience in agriculture. Armenia hoped that their expertise will play an important role for the successful colonization of these territories. In 2013, for example, there were 29 Syrian Armenian families in addition to many more settlers from Armenia living in the occupied Lachin and Zangilan regions of Azerbaijan and another 40 families were on a waiting list.^[6]

In August 2020 the head of separatist regime of Karabakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, said that 11 Armenian families from Lebanon moved to the occupied regions of Azerbaijan. He also stated that this issue was discussed with the Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs  which was established on June 11, 2019, by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia.

Some of these families were given homes in Shusha.

This behavior by the Republic of Armenia and the separatist regime received a harsh reaction from political circles in Azerbaijan. Hikmet Hajiyev, the adviser to the President of Azerbaijan, described this action of Armenian government, which took place after the July 2020 border clashes, as a provocation by Armenia, adding that Armenia’s illegal settlement policy across Azerbaijan’s occupied territories was a military crime.

The groups that Armenia and the separatist regime in Karabakh used to settle the occupied areas were not only Syrian and Lebanese Armenians. In 2014, the so-called presidential spokesman of the separatist regime, Davit Babayan, said that Karabakh is ready to accept Iraqi Yazidis fleeing from ISIS:

“If there are such requests, we will see to what extent we are able grant them,” said Davit Babayan in an interview with Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s Armenia Service.^[7] It does not appear that any took up the offer.

Faced with failure to sufficiently populate the seven formerly occupied regions, organizations in the Armenian diaspora also supported the illegal settlement. Although many villages in Armenia have been depopulated because of the adverse socio-economic conditions there, the Armenian authorities invested in the occupied regions of Azerbaijan. Such initiatives demonstrated how insincere Armenia had been during negotiations that assumed the return of those lands.

Diaspora Involvement In Illegal Settlement

Azerbaijan’s concerns were further heightened when more diaspora organizations engaged in such activities. The Hayastan All Armenian Fund, founded in 1992 in Yerevan, is perhaps the most well known of these organizations. Though comprising a Board of Trustees including the heads of the Armenian Church and the leadership of Armenia and the separatist regime in Karabakh^[8], it sought to raise funds from the diaspora for projects in both in an annual telethon. Its activities in Karabakh and the occupied territories, however, were the most controversial.

In 1995, for example it had already funded the construction of what has become known as the Lachin Corridor connecting Armenia to Karabakh at the cost of over $72 million. The highway was completed in 1999 and two years later, in 2001, it started construction on another connecting occupied Aghdara through occupied Kalbajar to Vardenis in Armenia. The total cost of the project completed in 2017 was $35.4 million of which around half was provided from official sources. Then President Serzh Sargsyan attended the opening ceremony in Karabakh.^[9]The total cost of the project was approximately $35.4 million, of which $15.6 million were provided by the Armenian government and about $4.1 million by the separatist regime in Karabakh. The North-South highway, which stretched from Aghdara to Hadrut and passed through Aghdam, clearly outside the boundaries of the NKAO, as was Kalbajar and Lachin, was built from 2000 to 2009 for $28.5 million.

The Hayastan All Armenian Fund also introduced water supply systems into areas such as Kalbajar in order to support the settlement of Armenians there. Naturally, when Azerbaijan took back its territories in the 2020 war, the Hayastan All Armenian Fund lost projects worth at least $100 million according to Armenian sources.^[10] Others were to also lose their investments.

The Tufenkian foundation, founded in 1999 by American-Armenian buisnessman James Tufenkian, constructed houses in the occupied regions of Azerbaijan such as Lachin, Zangilan, and Jabrail from 2003, also attempting to settle people from Armenia, Syria, Lebanon there. It also funded local media and journalists in Armenia, sometimes clandestinely, to promote their activities in this area. In 2004, the Tufenkian Foundation started construction of a “model village” in the Jabrail region of Azerbaijan, investing $1.4 million  to build what they named Arajamugh.

The Armenian Youth Federation, the youth wing of the ARF-Dashnaktsutyun, also contributed financially to this project. AYF members from the U.S. visited the village and promoted it on through various diaspora media. In 2008, a conference was even held in Lachin sponsored by the separatist regime of Karabakh and the Tufenkian Foundation to develop a plan to populate the Lachin, Qubadli and Zangilan regions of Azerbaijan given unsuccessful efforts up until that point.

In 2019, James Tufenkian met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan who welcomed his activities in Karabakh and the seven surrounding regions, clearly identifying that such efforts were not confined only to the previous regimes headed by Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan.

There were other organizations in the Diaspora too. Artsakh Roots Investment (ARI) was registered in Cyprus in 2010 and founded by Lebanese–Armenian businessmen, some of which were also members of ARF-Dashnakstutyun. ARI started to build new houses in the Zabukh village of Lachin in 2014. The opening ceremony of the village took place in September 2016 and Armenian families from Syria and Lebanon as well as Armenia moved to Zabukh, now renamed Aghavno.

One of those settlers was Andranik Chavushyan who moved from Syria to Armenia but then decided to live in Lachin in 2014. However, because of the difficult conditions there, he moved to the newly constructed Zabukh village in 2016. Chavushyan later became the ‘mayor of the Aghavno’  and partcipiated in the April 2016 War and the Second Karabakh War in 2020.

‘Our goal is to secure investments from the Diaspora to Nagorno Karabakh Republic for the purpose of economic development and resettlement,’ ARI’s Benyamin Bichakjian said.^[11]

The second major project of ARI was the construction of the Sydney settlement in formerly occupied Kalbajar. Fifteen houses were built with the $500,000 investment of Lebanese-Armenians and Australian-Armenians in Kalbajar. The Armenian government invested $300,000 dollars to construct infrastructure. Zabukh was finally returned to Azerbaijan in August 2022 when the existing Lachin Corridor was re-routed as agreed in the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire statement.

Lessons not Learned

Despite that ceasefire statement, however, Armenian claims on territories won back or returned because of the 2020 war continue. Though Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan might be ready to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, it does not appear as though the separatist regime in Karabakh is. On February 18, 2022, its parliament approved a bill that recognized all regions liberated during the Second Karabakh war were ‘occupied’ by Azerbaijan.

There also seems to be no recognition among the population of Armenia, nor in statements made by the Armenian government since 2020, that the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan was not only occupied and destroyed, but also illegally settled despite four UNSC resolutions. Failure to both acknowledge this or sign a peace agreement would only lead to even more concerns that Armenia had no intention of returning these lands.

The systematic destruction, illegal economic activities and illegal settlement policy carried out by Armenia in the occupied Azerbaijani territories for 30 years highlights how Armenia ignored international law by referring to the seven regions surrounding the former NKAO as ‘liberated.’ Moreover, this apparent policy of destruction and later settlement by Armenians after 1994 highlights how fears that the negotiation process prior to 2020 was imitation and simply a stalling process by Armenia only were not without substance.

^[1] ILLEGAL ECONOMIC AND OTHER ACTIVITIES IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF AZERBAIJAN

https://mfa.gov.az/files/shares/MFA%20Report%20on%20the%20occupied%20territories_March%202016.pdf

^[2]  Возвращение в Арцах https://old.hayernaysor.am/ru/archives/125156

^[3] Life In No Man’s Land  https://onnik-krikorian.com/new_site/life-in-no-mans-land/

^[4] Life In No Man’s Land

https://onnik-krikorian.com/new_site/life-in-no-mans-land/

^[5]Illusions and Reality: The vision of Ditsmayri  https://hetq.am/en/article/11131

^[6] Kashatagh Governor: 29 Syrian Armenian families live here and another 40 are on wait list https://hetq.am/en/article/28835

^[7]Karabakh ‘Ready’ Accept Yazidi Refugees  https://www.azatutyun.am/a/26539932.html

^{[8] [8]} Hayastan All Armenian Fund https://georgia.mfa.am/en/hayastan-fund/

^[9] https://anca.org/vardenis-martakert-highway-opens/

^[10]Armenians Invested Millions in Artsakh; Much Is Now in Azerbaijani Hands https://hetq.am/en/article/126476

^[11] Artsakh Roots Investment-ը ներդրումներ է ապահովվում ԼՂՀ-ի տնտեսական զարգացման համա https://hetq.am/hy/article/70482

This year three anniversaries in Cyprus have coincidentally come together: The sixtieth anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 186 adopted on 4 March 1964, which did more to perpetuate injustice than to extinguish the fire in the island and which still binds the hands of the Turkish Cypriots; the fiftieth anniversary of Turkey’s military intervention on 20 July 1974 as a Guarantor power, which changed the fate of the island in a indelible way; and the twentieth anniversary of the failed Annan Plan referendum held on 24 April 2004 to find a solution to the Cyprus conflict with a federal formula. All three of these anniversaries give important clues to those who wish to have a closer look at Cyprus and what might happen in the future.

The Statesman who best realised the importance of Cyprus for Turkey was undoubtedly the strategic genius, founder of Turkey, Atatürk. In 1937 Atatürk summarised Turkey’s view of Cyprus as follows: “As long as Cyprus is in the hands of the enemy, the supply routes of this region are blocked. Pay attention to Cyprus, this island is important for us.”

Looking back in historical perspective, the State of the “Republic of Cyprus”, established in 1960 with the Treaties of London and Zurich, relied on the delicate balance between Turkey and Greece established by the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923. Constitutionally, it was a functional federation in which Turks and Greeks shared sovereignty and, unlike other states, its independence was guaranteed by three countries (Turkey, Britain and Greece). As a requirement of joint sovereignty, the Vice-President, elected from among the Turks, had veto power. Perhaps the most striking feature of the state of affairs established in 1960 was the return of  the Turkish troops after 1878 when they had left the island.

Unfortunately, this fragile partnership between the two peoples, which started with fresh hopes, lasted only three years. In December 1963, the Greek Cypriot side brutally attacked the Turkish Cypriots and expelled them from the organs of the partnership State, massacring hundreds with acts of ethnic cleansing that went down in history as Bloody Christmas. This is how the chain of mistakes and injustices committed by the international community against the Turks in Cyprus began. The perpetrators of the murders and crimes committed against the Turks, to which the international community turned a blind eye, were never brought to justice.

How was the international reaction?

Early 1964 the issue was brought to the agenda of the United Nations Security Council with the pressure of the Greek Cypriot side, whose basic intention was to free itself from the constitutional rights granted to the Turks, to draw the issue to the international arena where they felt safer and to connect the island of Cyprus to Greece, an aim long-cherished by them. Under those circumstances, Turkey wanted to use its right to intervene under the Treaty of Guarantee to stop the attacks, but it encountered opposition basically from the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Consequently, the draft resolution 186 prepared by the two powers to end the conflict envisaged the establishment of an international “peacekeeping force” to work, not with the two equal founding peoples of the Republic, but under the new “Cyprus Government”, now consisting only of Greek Cypriots, from which the Turks were excluded at gunpoint. Rauf Denktaş, who represented the Turkish Cypriots at the Council, resisted 186 together with Turkey, arguing that the security provisions in the Treaty of Guarantee were sufficient to provide peace. However, the resolution was passed as the US and the UK, which had veto power, wanted. Thus, a “Peace Keeping Force” was formed that would fulfil its mandate of “maintaining law and order in Cyprus” by being accredited to the new Greek Cypriot government, which was actually the violator of the 1960 constitution. This clearly meant a flagrant and grave historical mistake committed by the  United Nations Security Council, since literally the fox was now entrusted to safeguard the henhouse.

In the ensuing years, Resolution 186 served as a basis for the Greek Cypriots to refuse any proposals to find a settlement on the island. More important of all, it placed the Cyprus issue at a wrong perspective: Its harmful effect has continued for many years by both squeezing the Turks to establish a federation with their involuntary neighbors and by opening the way for their neighbors’ unlawful administration to becoming a member of the European Union in contradiction to the 1960 balance.

Meanwhile, the situation of the United Kingdom, the former colonial power, whose part in the adoption of Resolution 186 was beyond doubt,  deserves special mention. When we look at the past, the United Kingdom had offered to give the island of Cyprus to Greece in 1915 in return for entering the war on its side in the First World War.  Although having a substantial military capability on the island with two military bases extending to 254 square kilometres, which is around 3 percent of the island, the United Kingdom remained uncooperative and silent while the Turkish Cypriots were attacked and killed in the painful years from 1963 up until 1974. The United Kingdom also left Turkey alone by not using its Guarantor authority during the 20 July 1974 Military Operation of Turkey against the Sampson coup, which was staged by the Greek Junta in order to hand over the island to Greece.

Hence, after so many years, it becomes indisputably clear that, had it not been for Turkey’s military operation in 1974, the 50th anniversary of which will be celebrated on 20 July this year, no stumbling block would unfortunately have been left for the Greek side to completely eradicate the Turkish Cypriots from the island.

Turkey’s Peace Operation

This is actually the reason why the name of this life saving operation goes with  “Peace”. The decision then whether or not to carry out this operation, which has an important place in the history of Turkish diplomacy and military service, was not easy for Ankara, which was experiencing the difficulties of being governed by a coalition government. It was for the most part Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit’s statesmanship and his clear vision of Turkey’s interests in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as his integrity, that were decisive factors through the decision making process to intervene militarily. Ecevit’s ability to use the necessary initiative with diplomatic skills at critical stages of the operation and his working in harmony with the General Staff deserves special mention in the context of the success achieved.

After the Operation, the division of the island into two as Northern and Southern Cyprus, followed by the population exchange deal of 7 August 1975 enabled the settlement of the Turks in the North and the Greeks in the South. As a consequence, the Turkish Operation significantly paved the way for a permanent change in the fate of the island, after which a period of uninterrupted peace began to reign in Cyprus.

Obviously it would be useless to ask what happened after 1974 to the United Nations Peace Keeping Force on the island, which too, like the United Kingdom, had remained indifferent when the Turks were being attacked: Unsurprisingly, since Resolution 186 remained the same, their enterprise continued to be unlawfully accredited to the Greek Cypriot Administration. The “Force” kept on with its attitude of favoring Greek Cypriot interests in the buffer zone as well as in the South where it was basically assigned and active. Could anything favorable be expected otherwise for the well being of the Turkish Cypriots from a weak and biased military unit, while 33 per cent of its budget is funded by the Greek Cypriots and 11 per cent by Greece?

Is Cyprus an issue of “Invasion and Occupation”?

For 50 years now, the Greek Cypriot side has been trying to draw the issue into the international arena by claiming that the Cyprus issue is a matter of invasion and occupation. On the contrary, the two best answers to this claim were given by the former Greek Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios himself, who directly accused Greece of invading Cyprus in his speech at the United Nations on 19 July 1974, and by the Athens Court of Appeals in 1979. In the case numbered 2658/79, filed by the family of a Greek corporal who lost his life in Cyprus on 22 July 1974, the Court in question, with its decision dated 21 March 1979, decided that as Guarantor, Turkey was justified in its 1974 intervention, that it acted in accordance with the London-Zurich Treaties in doing so, and that the real culprits should be sought among the Greek officers who prepared the ground for the intervention by organising a coup in Cyprus.

How did the referendum on the Annan Plan come about?

After 1974, negotiations started within the framework of the United Nations Secretary General’s mission of good offices to forge a federation between the two sides. The Greek Cypriot side participated in the negotiations as the “Government”, claiming to represent the whole of Cyprus, while the status of the  Turkish side was reduced to that of a “community”. Over the years, many federal solution plans were put forward. The “bi-communal arrangement” in 1975, the Anglo-American-Canadian Plan in 1978, the Waldheim Report in 1981, the Cuellar Plans in 1985 and 1986, the Boutros-Ghali Set of Ideas in 1992 and finally the famous Annan Plan in 2004 came to the agenda. All through these talks the Greek Cypriot side constantly demanded the abolition of the Guarantee system, withdrawal of the Turkish troops from the island and settlement of Greek Cypriots people at Northern Cyprus territory. They also refused to accept the solution of the property issue through compensation and exchange.

As former Greek Foreign Minister Nicos Rolandis admitted later in an article published in the Sunday Mail on 3 February 2008, it was in fact the Greek Cypriot side which rejected all federal solution proposals indicated above, including the Annan Plan. This brings us to the core of the question: was a federal solution on the island really viable? Indeed, in order for Turks and Greeks to live under a federal umbrella, first and foremost, there needed to be strong common interests, mutual trust, respect and above all, interdependence on vital issues with a culture of joint decision-making and sharing.

However, lacking any such favorable approach or culture and, having literally lost the means to attack militarily, the Greek Cypriot side started to impose a ruthless embargo against the Turks, which continues to this day. Today, citizens of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are unable to participate in international sports competitions, cannot fly or trade directly, cannot benefit from foreign aid, face restrictions in communication and are subjected to racist physical attacks when they cross into Southern Cyprus. Could a federation be established in such an environment? The answer to this question was given by the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in his report dated 28 May 2004, after the Greek Cypriots rejected the 8000-page solution plan bearing his name, which was put to referendum in both parts of Cyprus on 24 April 2004: “Greeks do not want to share authority and prosperity with Turks on an equal footing.”

Today, it is understood as a fact of the island that the Greek Cypriot side is not in favour of giving up the administration it has.

Would it be any better today if the Annan Plan had been accepted? The Turks living in the parts of Northern Cyprus envisaged to be ceded to the South would then become migrants for a third time since 1963. Furthermore, one third of the Greek Cypriot population would be allowed to enter and settle in Northern Cyprus, which would dilute the bi-zonality and disrupt the demographic structure of the North, undoubtedly causing frictions between the two peoples again. Worse, since the plan did not resolve the property issue comprehensively, tensions would then arise again. A Greek canton would be established in the Turkish Karpaz region of the island, which would jeopardize the territorial integrity of the North. Above all, the guarantee system would have been watered down and the deterrent, balancing and protective influence of the Turkish troops on the island would have disappeared.

What kind of a future awaits the island Turks?

Although the Greek Cypriot side has so far rejected all proposals on a federal solution, it still insists on vague federal models that would allow them to keep their rule and would open the way for them to reduce the Turks to the level of a minority. It is also  not surprising that such ventures are backed by Greece and the European Union. Assuming that such federal models continue to be put on the table and negotiated, would that amount to any better situation other than chaining the Turkish Cypriots to an endless negotiation process?

Like every country, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus may have problems and difficulties. However, it needs to be duly acknowledged that Turkish Cypriots are governed with an advanced understanding of democracy, freedom and the rule of law. Therefore, it can undeniably be said that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has an international democratic legitimacy. Keeping such characteristics in mind, there is probably no other example in the world where a country is both fully democratic and also is living under inhuman embargoes and restrictions.

So what kind of a future will the Turkish Cypriots draw for themselves under such circumstances? Before making any prediction, it is most useful to recall the words of the late leader of the Turkish Cypriots, Rauf Denktaş from October 29, 2003: “I will not even enter paradise without Turkey.” His words reflect not only the true nature of his people’s connection with the Motherland, but also shows his dedication to Atatürk, whose understanding of Cyprus was quoted above.

Bülent Ecevit, the Prime Minister of Turkey during the 1974 Peace Operation, had made a similar statement in his speech at the Turkish Grand National Assembly on 21 January 1997: “As much as Turkey is a guarantee for the TRNC, the TRNC is also a guarantee for Turkey. The security of our Mersin and Iskenderun harbours, natural gas and oil pipelines in the Eastern Mediterranean depend on it; therefore, Turkish troops must remain in Northern Cyprus forever.” It is noteworthy that Ecevit’s remarks are also in striking congruity with the words of Atatürk.

It might therefore be said that the future of the Turkish Cypriots is closely related to Turkey and to living in peace and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean, under the roof of the state they have established, with the assurance provided by Turkey’s effective guarantee. The peace and tranquillity that came to Cyprus 50 years ago will be consolidated when a compromise is reached with their southern neighbours on the basis of sovereign equality and equal international status.