Welcome to the Middle East, Cyprus!

Listen for a few minutes to the speech of the president of the Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes as he talks on Cyprus (go to minute 28). I apologise the minor mistakes in the quoted text below, but the audio is of bad quality. In the Q&A session he speaks about "Turkey" being suspended from NATO, or even rejected, and he also thinks it possible that "Turkey" could split into two, but not more pieces. He also finds Antifon's idea of renaming "Turkey" proper.

God's Greater Design

"All Denktash really did was to show Kurds of northern Kurdistan the way to freedom, freedom from slavery and cultural genocide. Cyprus's 40 year or so temporary ordeal was just a necessary sacrifice in God's far greater plan to emancipate the Kurds." - Antifon

Downer by name, disaster by nature | www.mathaba.net

Former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has waded into his old patch in a characteristically obnoxious and hamfisted way. Alan Austin takes a look at the Downer ``resume``. (Image screenshot from ABC TV News.)

AS IF AUSTRALIA’S foreign policy isn’t precarious enough already. Tony Abbott is Prime Minister, Julie Bishop is Foreign Minister, Andrew Robb is Minister for Trade and all seem well out of their depth.

Now failed former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has gone on television to lecture Indonesia’s Foreign MinisterMarty Natalegawa on its foreign policy. In a monumental blunder, he accused the Indonesians of breaching Australian sovereignty.

Kurdish Response to Erdogan's latest "Presents"

Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union (KCK) | To the Kurdish Peoples and democratic public opinion

9 October 2013

The Kurdish question emerged as a result of the Turkish state's policy of Turkification through its denial of the Kurds' existence and subjecting them to cultural genocide. All the Kurds' objections to this policy have been violently crushed. Once the Kurds had been silenced and reduced to a state where they could not protest, the cultural genocide was accelerated using economic, social and cultural policies. By the 1970s the Kurds had been left with no option but to become Turkish in order to perpetuate their lives. A political, social, economic, cultural and psychological environment had been created that drove Kurds away from Kurdishness, putting it on the path to extinction.

Vienna then, Keryneia today!

The battle of Vienna 330 years ago stopped the Ottomans' miltary advance to Europe. Today's demographic/cultural advance of the neo Ottomans must be fought diplomatically at the gates of Keryneia. Keryneia, Christian and/or Greek throughout history for millennia until 39 years ago, today hosts no Greek Christians, ethnically cleansed or killed in 1974, and populated instead mostly by illegal Turkish settlers and a minority of Turkish Cypriots.

When is not a good time to deal?

Although I shall not expand on it now, the necessary serenity is absent, there is an important reason for which there cannot be, and there should not be, any deal with today's "Turkey" for Cyprus's British-Turkish problem. That is because in "Turkey" there is authentic fascism, some Turkish liberals like Nuray Mert, call it authoritarian nationalism. It's the same thing that persists since its birth in 1923, first under the Kemalist veil that the west approved of, now under a "mildly" Islamic one.

It starts going awfully wrong right about here!

Do you by any chance have a minute and a half to become suspicious about why we are so different? Millions of children in Neoottomania recited their national oath (different than the anthem) every morning for the past 80 years, in an identical manner. In Occupistan as well. Abolished just in 2013.

President Makarios: "This was the course dictated to me by necessity"

The Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, in its present form, creates many difficulties in the smooth government of the State and impedes the development and progress of the country.

It contains many sui generis provisions conflicting with internationally accepted democratic principles and creates sources of friction between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

Report Exposes Kurdish Torment at Turkish Schools | Rudaw

A Kurdish boy listening to a Turkish class. Photo: AFP

Rudaw | By Uzay Bulut | ANKARA, Turkey – A report released by the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly about the role of schools in Ankara’s peace process with the country’s oppressed Kurdish minority exposes the racism and difficulties Kurdish children and teachers face in Turkish state schools.

The report, titled The role of teachers in societal peace building - how the Kurdish issue is reflected in schools, exposes the bullying, discrimination and violence that Kurdish students and teachers experience at schools in Turkey, often resulting in life-long traumas.

How the EU directly funds settlements in occupied territory | Jerusalem Post

How the EU directly funds settlements in occupied territory | By EUGENE KONTOROVICH | 09/28/2013

Photo: reuters: GIANT Turkish flag is seen displayed on the side of a mountain near Nicosia in Turk-occupied Cyprus

The EU knowingly and purposefully provides substantial direct financial assistance to settlements in occupied territory – in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, that is.

A delegation of European Union officials arrived in Israel weeks ago to discuss the European Commission’s proposed regulations for discretionary funding to Israeli entities.