Cyprus (Northern Cyprus) [the turkish bit] Presidential Election Day.

international | politics / elections | other press Sunday April 17, 2005 20:54 by - scorchio!

65 cents of a €uro's worth of electronic mail to ye.

The _*unrecognised*_ Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has a presidential election today.

The self-proclaimed republic was declared in 1983 in the the northern region of the island which the Turkish Army occupied back in 1974.

Turkey is the world's only country to have recognized it. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (bit bigger than the arabic league but the mint tea isn't as food) granted it observer member status under the name of "Turkish Cypriot State".

Cyprus is a member state of the EU.
check the 65 cent Irish stamp (the one with the map)

The Turkish Cyprus barrier （UN Buffer Zone on Cyprus）is a 300 km (187 mile) separation barrier along the 1974 Green Line (or ceasefire line) between the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and The Republic of Cyprus. Constructed by Turkey, it served to separate the northern 37% (mostly inhabited by ethnic Turkish Cypriots) of Cyprus, occupied by Turkish troops since 1974, from the southern part (mostly inhabited by ethnic Greek Cypriots), and splits the capital Nicosia in two.

The barrier itself consists of concrete walls, barbed wire fencing, watch-towers, anti-tank ditches, and minefields. Parts of it are patrolled by United Nations peacekeeping forces.
It has a big no-mans land in the middle, and you can still see toys in the middle that we were dropped by the 200,000 refugees who crossed it.

It's a good example of a border.

In April 2003 the Turkish Cypriot government significantly eased travel restrictions across the barrier, which had for 29 years prohibited crossings, whilst both sides called each other names, and shot at the dogs in no-mans land.

You can see the dead dog's carcases by the toys.

Since Cyprus' joined the European Union under Bertie Ahern's presidency, the Cypriots have rejected re-unification, and property investment and speculation has jumped island wide.
Travel restrictions have been abolished for all EU citizens.

Which means If you go on holidays to Cyprus you can visit the north as well as now, and the only part of the country you can't visit are -
two small areas on the southern coast of the island, around Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

Under the independence agreement, the UK retains the title of two small areas on the southern coast of the island, around Akrotiri and Dhekelia, known collectively as "the UK sovereign base areas". They are used to host military bases and parties with sniffy type drugs and uniforms.
If you wan't to visit them, write a letter of application to
the Irish Minister for Justice and republics, Michael Mc Dowell,
Leinster House
Dublin 1.

You might curry favour with your application if you stick a fiver and a discount flyer for a kebab in the envelope and of course use a 65cent Irish EU stamp. (clearly mark the flyer "for Mary")

Mehmet Ali Talat, presently Prime Minister and Republican Turkish Party leader, is the new president. His party has been in office for a month the republic's Cabinet, last month. Talat wants to see the island reunited on UN peacemaking blueprints, and calls on the Turkish Republic (Turkey) [with the appaling human rights record] (PD approved construction companies get their cheap workers from there) to join the European Union.

That will be really really interesting, as the EU rather stickily doesn't recognise nations without states, and hasn't recognised the Turkish Republic to be a legitimate state at all, at all, and would have to at least change some of its own internal rules, like "the constitution". Write a letter to the Progressive Democrat Euro-VIP mr Pat Cox and ask him to repeat his view on such things in light of today's democratic participative elections in the Basque Autonomous Region and the Islamic Republic of Northern Turkey.
Included a kebab voucher the envelope and better up the "fiver" to at least "twenty / a score" AND don't forget that 65cent Eu stamp. (depending on which slang socio-economic-linguistic group you hail from).

Mr President (of a non legitimate state) Mehmet Ali Talat won 55.6% of the vote, well ahead of his nearest rival, Dervis Eroglu, who won just 22.7%

Unfortuanately I can't tell you how many northern turkish didn't vote in their illegitimate state.

Coz the figures aren't published nor are they likely to be.

But I can tell you there were 577 ballot boxes.

I can also tell you Cyprus is "guitar shaped" and in a different place to that where it was located by the Irish Government (FF& PD coalition) when Bertie Ahern was EU president.

read this article:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3690489.stm

Relax, they're really €uropean & they know what they're doing.

Whilst the northern cypriots look forward to intense speculation on their beach side homes, a certian livening up their discos and bar-life, which European statehood will give them, certain of that speculation will surely centre around the disputed properties left behind by greek cypriot refugees during the 1974 invasion.

which ousted more than 200,000 Greek-Cypriots from their homes. The precedent case of Loizidou vs Turkey was judged in favor of Loizidou, a Greek Cypriot, and ruled that Turkey should pay her compensation. More specifically, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Loizidou is entitled to a sizeable compensation for loss of use of her property, while she retains all rights of ownership of it. It is understood by both sides that no solution to the Cyprus problem can be achieved without a significant tranfer of property back to pre-invasion owners, Greek-Cypriots or Turkish-Cypriots, an issue that further complicates any potential solution.

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*this article contains meaty substance from many media sources, some free like wiki and others relying on good will and solid fertilizer and with an irritating habit of describing countries like household objects.
**Don't reheat after consumption even though it might look the same. add your own sauce.
***you could try picking up the toys and finding the generation of little girls now grown women that dropped them there and saying - sorry, here's some health care, a decent job, a pension, and some justice and equality economic and geo-political.
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