Who are you to tell me to get out?

“Who are you to tell me to get out? I have martyrs [Turkey’s 1974 invasion], I have strategic interests.” -Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, February 2011

My note: On a people/culture level we Cypriots love the Americans & Brits. But we really do need allies against Turkish bullying/wickedness. Trojan horses won't do.

Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources

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16. (C) The greatest potential strategic problem for the US, however, and the one that has some of the commentators howling, is the Turks neo-Ottoman posturing around the Middle East and Balkans. This "back to the past" attitude so clear in Davutoglu's Sarajevo speech, combined with the Turks' tendency to execute it through alliances with more Islamic or more worrisome local actors, constantly creates new problems. Part of this is structural. Despite their success and relative power, the Turks really can't compete on equal terms with either the US or regional "leaders" (EU in the Balkans, Russia in the Caucasus/Black Sea, Saudis, Egyptians and even Iranians in the ME). With Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources, to cut themselves in on the action the Turks have to "cheat" by finding an underdog (this also plays to Erdogan's own worldview), a Siladjcic, Mish'al, or Ahmadinejad, who will be happy to have the Turks take up his cause. The Turks then attempt to ram through revisions to at least the reigning "Western" position to the favor of their guy. Given, again, the questioning of Western policy and motives by much of the Turkish public and the AKP, such an approach provides a relatively low cost and popular tool to demonstrate influence, power, and the "we're back" slogan. Source: Wikileaks

Nice words. How?

"We deserve a better country. A free, democratic country inside the EU. With citizens who won't have super privileges and the right to live at the expense of the majority. With citizens who won't have less rights than those of other Europeans. With citizens who won't be condemned to live forever under Turkey's guardianship and occupation." Eleni Theocharous MEP 5/2/2012

The EU can get angry too, as it turns out

At a meeting on Thursday afternoon in Brussels with President of Cyprus Demetris Christofias, President of the Socialists Group at the European Parliament Martin Schulz was asked to comment on Turkey`s recent behavior as regards the Cyprus issue and the threats Ankara has launched against Cyprus` sovereign right to explore and exploit any hydrocarbon reserves in its Exclusive Economic Zone, Schulz said “I was angry and I told it to the Turkish Minister of EU Affairs Egemen Bagis“.

Megalomania

“The AK Party is not only a party of Turkey, it is a party of the world from Mogadishu to Bosnia and Herzegovina, from Damascus to Skopje, from Sana to Bishkek, from Abu Dhabi to Islamabad, from Gaza to Benghazi, from Pristina to the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". Where there is a victim in the world, the AK Party is there by his side. This is the kind of party we are” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

It's official! I envy tCypriots. The Prime Sinister's comments are spot on for the tCypriot victims who so perfectly fit the bill! And they play the part so darn well!

Cyprus bolsters EU's energy security

The President of the European People's Party (EPP), Wilfried Martens, reacted today to the unprecedented military threats from Turkish officials regarding the start of oil and gas exploration by the Republic of Cyprus in its southmost exclusive economic zone (EEZ), by the American contractor 'Noble':

Turkish clown culture

How Turkish of Bağış, Turkey's Minister of EU Affairs, to issue military threats! How rich of him to invoke international law when Turkey grossly violates international law!

Q. Greek Cyprus has declared that it will begin oil exploration in the Mediterranean on Oct. 1. Can you comment on this?

Order order!

“I am not about to give advice to American companies,” U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Frank Ricciardone said in response to a question about whether Washington would urge Noble Energy to stop natural gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean. “We are aware of Turkey’s stance on this. Regarding the solution in Cyprus, as always, we continue to support the efforts from both parties,” said Ricciardone.

Is that a 'no'?

Turkish journalist Ilhan Tanir: In a three-point statement I received from the State Department on Wednesday [August 10 2011], the U.S. administration states that it is aware of Turkey’s position on the issue [Cyprus plans for gas drilling], and reiterated its commitment "to support strongly the efforts of both Cypriot parties to reunify the island into a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation." However, as a final point, the U.S. administration underscored that it views the plans in terms of "securing energy supplies through better energy diversity" and that "is something that the United States strongly supports for all countries."

A most interesting "Turkish" what-if of an ethnic Turk

Davutoğlu “went to Libya and took part in an opposition demonstration. What if a Western diplomat joins a demonstration in Diyarbakır one day?” he [ Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu] said.

Who is likely to end up with nothing?

"Not only does the Turkish government cling to outmoded hostile rhetoric but it raises an entirely new obstacle to improving relations with the EU He could have sunk his enormous pride and arranged meetings directly with President Christofias ... he [Erdogan] sounds increasingly like the worst of the ultra-Kemalists ... By offering Turkey only the crude choice between ‘the EU or Cyprus’, he [Erdogan] is likely to end up with neither" - British Member of the European Parliament Andrew Duff

Snubbing Cyprus means snubbing the EU

"Those who refuse to hold talks with a member state are snubbing the entire EU," said Stefan Müller, a senior member of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. Erdogan has proven that "he doesn't shy away from attempts at blackmail in the interest of political power," Müller told the daily Rheinische Post. He said that fact further disqualifies Turkey's plans to join the bloc. "They can never be an equal partner in the EU," he said.

Wise men wanted for the Kurdish issue

“If needed, wise men, those who write and conduct research on this for years, and academics could be brought together, they could contribute to the solution of the problem, and I believe in this,” Kılıçdaroğlu said. The CHP leader's remarks came at a time when tensions are running high between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the government. In the latest attack on Tuesday, PKK members shelled a gendarmerie command, slightly wounding three soldiers. The PKK also kidnapped two soldiers and a health worker on Saturday night.”

Talk of civil war

“In order to shape the results in the upcoming elections, to get 3-5 more points in votes, they play with not only Kurdish, but all social texture of Turkey. We are very concerned with this blindness, since the outcome of this method can lead to a civil war ... “Why have the military and the police started to attack now” -- Sırrı Sakık, a parliament member running as an independent with the support of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP | “This is a massacre and war crime. We will carry our hatred to the streets” -- Filiz Koçali, co-chairperson of the BDP

Should Turkey adopt her Cyprus logic at home?

“Turkey is too big of a country to be centrally governed by one prime minister,” former pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş said Monday. The democratic autonomy we have been proposing is the solution to all problems,” he said, adding that Ankara “should not run everything.”

tCypriot revolution in the making

“Mr. Governor [ambassador] avoids seeing the realities in the north of the island and is trying to cover it up with various remarks and talks about a bulky structure, which is a segregationist structure built by themselves in the first place. Are you not the one who said, ‘Go for tourism or trade’ and not the one who closed Sanayi Industry Holding down, disassembled factories and moved them out? With the austerity package you have imposed on us while forcing the Turcocypriot youth to move out, you also have brought a crowd into the north and made Turcocypriots pay for employment, food, health, and education expenditures of this crowd. Have you not?

tCypriot awakening?

“You will grant properties of Grecocypriots, the most beautiful land of our country and valuable assets of Turcocypriots to your cronies for nothing and transfer population to the north of the island and let Turcocypriots die out as you prevent a durable solution to the Cyprus dispute. You will take us hostage during the European Union membership process and use us as a trump-card to say, ‘I have strategic interests,’ then turn around and ask us to pay the price. Turkey’s real intention is to make the north of Cyprus a province of its own, increase the population to a million and bring another Hatay [Antioch] example into life.” İzzet İzcan, United Cyprus Party, or BKP, General Secretary | Hürriyet Daily News

Turkey: an obvious unpleasant truth deliberately ignored by the west

[MEP and leader of the Socialists in the European Parliament, Martin Schulz] described Christofias as a “friend” and “a man who deserves trust and support”. On the Turkish Cypriot leader, he said: “I think Mr Eroglu has the problem all leaders of the Turkish Cypriot community have. He is on the one hand the leader of a community, on the other hand he has to deal with the government in Ankara and I think the relations between the Turkish government and them are not in the best shape.”

Davutoglu's meltdown at NATO over Cyprus

Cyprus Mail - TURKISH FOREIGN Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saw red when pressured to accept Cyprus’ presence in EU-NATO meetings during a NATO summit in Berlin on Sunday.

A number of Turkish papers yesterday reported that Davutoglu and Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg engaged in a verbal spat at the NATO foreign ministers’ summit over comments on Cyprus. So much so that the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton was quoted as saying she had never seen Davutoglu so “upset” before.

Davutoglu reportedly lost his cool when Schwarzenberg effectively told him to mind his own business, after the Turkish minister suggested the EU made a mistake accepting Cyprus.

If war has been decided, then Kurds will fight the war!

“This decision is clearly a decision of war on the Kurds. It is a decision to send the Kurds to the mountains [to become guerillas]. If the rulers of this country have decided for war, then that is just fine. Then the Kurds will fight the war.” Bengi Yıldız, BDP politician | April 19 2011

Euronews April 18 2011