By Atlas Al
Dervis Eroglu - President of TRNC
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
It looks as if there’ll be no end to the Cyprus crisis. Dervis Eroglu, the prime minister of the occupied Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, won the recent presidential election. And why should I care about all this? Because he’s a nationalist who’d prefer not to reunite with the rest of Cyprus, and he represents an illegitimate state.
During the last two centuries, bad blood has been spilled between Greece and Turkey: four major wars, ethnic cleansing pogroms in Istanbul, skirmishes between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, and a failed coup d’état in Nicosia backed by Greece’s military junta in 1974.
The British gave independence to Cyprus in 1960. Perhaps they thought by making Cyprus an independent state rather than being controlled by Greece or Turkey that it would smooth over the centuries-old conflict. Cyprus’s independence made matters worse between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots and escalated into a full-blown Turkish invasion of the island in mid-1974.
Cypriot Nationality
The root of the Cyprus crisis stems from ethnic Greek and Turkish communities not accepting a unified Cypriot nationality. With this kind of deep cultural divide, they should’ve remained a British colony, been wholly controlled by Greece or Turkey, or accept the split as it is now.
I hate it when people refer to themselves as Greek-Cypriot, Turkish-Cypriot, African-American, Chinese-American, Japanese-Brazilian, an English Jew, Catholic or Protestant Irish. This “Us versus Them” mentality creates social friction and is unhealthy for society (consider the conflict in Ireland, for example). Never in my life have I said I’m French-American – I’m just American.
From a flagging perspective, it’d be much easier to assess the flag status of a person who came from northern Cyprus if Turkey just claimed it as one of their own provinces. Instead, they play political games and are the only country in the world that recognizes the sovereignty of the TRNC.
From 1960 to 1974, the entire island was under the sovereign rule of the Republic of Cyprus. Northern Cypriots (no matter if they were Turkish or of another background) are essentially squatters on the Republic of Cyprus’s land.
Map of Nicosia, Cyprus
TRNC
The TRNC’s limbo state of affairs doesn’t mean they don’t have a flag. They must be something. They’re probably not Greek because most Greeks and Greek-Cypriots live in the southern half of the island. The only people who can say they’re Turkish (i.e., from Turkey, aka, Turkish flag) are the immigrants who came to northern Cyprus since Turkey’s invasion. Everybody else (mostly of Turkish heritage) aren’t Turkish because they come from the island of Cyprus, not Turkey, hence they’re of Cypriot nationality.
If you shagged someone from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, you got the Cypriot flag.
The only lasting peace will be in the form of a standstill unless Turkey renounces its support for the TRNC. When that day comes, reunification talks will resume.
Very interesting! I enjoyed that!