President’s Office slams Anastasiades over Turkiye remarks

The Office of the President has reacted strongly to the latest remarks made by the Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades against Turkiye’s presence in Cyprus.

President Ersin Tatar’s Office condemned Anastasiades for exploiting Russia’s incursion into Ukraine to brand Turkiye as an occupying force in Cyprus.

It pointed out that the similarities Anastasiades drew between the Russia-Ukrainian conflict and Turkiye’s military intervention in Cyprus was aimed at concealing the fact that the Greek Cypriots in collaboration with Greece had hijacked the 1960 Partnership Republic in 1963, committing a series of crimes and atrocities in the process.

Reminding that the 1960 Republic had been created through the equal sovereign rights of the two peoples on the island, the statement said that this partnership had been destroyed through the force of arms and transformed into a Greek Cypriot state.

It explained that the Cyprus Problem had begun with the occupation of the 1960 Republic gaining an additional dimension with the coup orchestrated in 1974 by the Junta in Greece and its collaborators in Cyprus.

“In the decades that followed, the Greek Cypriot leaders, past and present, continued their efforts and attempts to impose their hegemony and achieve full control of the island with the goal of uniting the island with Greece. The attacks unleashed against Turkish Cypriots in 1963 followed by 11 years of bloody attacks with the goal of exterminating them were proof of this,” the statement read.

The President’s Office said that had it not been for Turkiye’s timely intervention on the island following the coup carried out by Greece, the consequences for those in living in Cyprus and the region would have been far greater.

Cyprus, it had added, would have been recorded in history as the island where mass genocide was carried out.

“The only occupation that is taking place in Cyprus is the one that is being continued by the Greek Cypriots since 1963 in violation of the international treaties which recognize the Turkish Cypriots’ equal rights,” it said.

The statement added that the presence of the Turkish Armed Forces on the island was the guarantee of peace and security on the island.

“If Turkish Cypriots are able to live in freedom and security today, if there has been no blood spilt since 1974, it is because of the Turkish Armed Forces,” the Office of the President said.

It concluded by calling on all parties showing sensitivity or condemning the Russia-Ukraine conflict not to remain silent to the injustices being committed against the Turkish Cypriot people for the past 59 years.