http://www.lifo.gr/articles/greece_articles/189834/giorgos-leventis-to-islamofasistiko-kathestos-erntogan-epivalletai-stadiaka-kai-stin-toyrkokypriaki-koinonia

Από την σκοπιά της Λευκωσίας – αν όχι και της Αθήνας – εύλογα τίθεται το εξής ερώτημα: θα είχε πρόβλημα ο Ρώσος ή ο Αμερικανός Πρόεδρος με την Λευκωσία ως φιλοξενούσα πρωτεύουσα για πραγματοποίηση της πρώτης τους συνάντησης; Η απάντηση είναι ουδέν πρόβλημα: η Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία είναι ακόμη πιο ουδέτερη κι διπλά αποδεκτή από Μόσχα και Ουάσιγκτον μιας και είναι κράτος μέλος της ΕΕ αλλά όχι του ΝΑΤΟ. Η τελευταία ιδιότητα, η συμμετοχή δηλαδή στην Βορειοατλαντική Συμμαχία, ενίοτε ενοχλεί την Μόσχα, αν και παρατηρούμε ότι στην περίπτωση της Λιουμπλιάνα ο Πούτιν ασμένως έσπευσε να δηλώσει ότι δεν έχει αντίρρηση.

Πριν προλάβω να βάλω την πέννα στο χαρτί για να προτείνω την Λευκωσία για την συνάντηση κορυφής Τραμπ-Πούτιν ξεσπά η αχρείαστη ψυχοφθόρα και ζημιογόνα διαμάχη για θέματα της συγχρόνου ιστορίας μας αυτονόητα και αυταπόδεικτα: η έγκριση της Βουλής και του ΠτΔ για την ενημέρωση (Ν.Β. όχι την επισταμένη έρευνα και εμβριθή μελέτη) μιας καθόλα ιστορικής στιγμής της νεότερης Κύπρου: του Ενωτικού Δημοψηφίσματος του 1950. Γιατί ένα απλό θέμα προσφοράς στοιχειώδους ιστορικής γνώσης προς τους εφήβους μας να χρειάζεται ψήφισμα της Βουλής και προεδρική υπογραφή για να εφαρμοστεί; Ποιος ο λόγος ύπαρξης τότε του Υπουργείου Παιδείας; (Ο γράφων έχει εδώ και εικοσαετία αναλύσει αποδεσμευμένες Βρετανικές εκθέσεις επί του θέματος του Δημοψηφίσματος 1950. Δέστε σχετική ανάλυση με τίτλο: Το Ενωτικό Δημοψήφισμα 1950 με Βρετανικά Μάτια: Γνήσια Βούληση του Κυπριακού Λαού http://www.inter-security-forum.org). Φυσικά η υπερβολική αντίδραση του ΤΚ ηγέτη και η αποχώρηση του από την αίθουσα των συνομιλιών κρίνεται ανάξια σχολιασμού.

Το κεφαλαιώδες ερώτημα που τίθεται είναι τι είδους κράτος είμαστε και πώς στεκόμαστε στη διεθνή σκακιέρα; Αυτομειωνόμαστε και υποπίπτουμε σε διεθνή ανυποληψία ενόσω αναλωνόμαστε στα αυτονόητα και στα αυταπόδεικτα αντί να έχομε την προσοχή μας στραμμένη στη επίρρωση του κύρους της Κυπριακής Δημοκρατίας ως κράτους Ευρωπαϊκού, παράγοντα σταθερότητας στην ταραγμένη μας περιοχή, κράτους διατηρούντος άριστες σχέσεις με τις δυο υπερδυνάμεις όπως και με όλους τους γείτονες πλην βεβαίως της κατοχικής Ισλαμο-Φασιστικής Τουρκίας.

Από πού κι ως πού ο ΠτΔ να αναλώνεται σε πεντασέλιδες εξηγήσεις προς συγκράτηση του αφηνιασμένου Ακιντζί, άθλιου υποχείριου της φασιστικής Άγκυρας του νέο-σουλτάνου Ερντογάν, αντί να αναλαμβάνει ωραίες και λαμπρές διεθνείς πρωτοβουλίες όπως η προαναφερθείσα μιας και διατηρεί προς πίστη του άριστες σχέσεις τόσο με την Ουάσιγκτον όσο και με την Μόσχα; Κύριε Αναστασιάδη όρθωσε διεθνές ανάστημα όπως σού αξίζει, πάψε να αυτοϋποβαθμίζεσαι σε Κοινοτάρχη, πάψε να ρυμουλκήσε από τα Τουρκικά καμώματα και πάρε τον δρόμο τον λαμπρόν της σύζευξης των δύο υπερδυνάμεων στον αγώνα κατά των επί των θυρών ημών Δυνάμεων του Σκότους του Ισλαμικού Κράτους και των προστατών τους συμπεριλαμβανομένης της κατοχικής Τουρκίας. Αυτό επιτάσσει η ιστορική στιγμή!

Είναι επιβεβλημένο να αναφερόμαστε στον Καταστατικό Χάρτη του ΟΗΕ, τις αρχές και τα ψηφίσματα του. Άλλωστε η διαδικασία επίλυσης του προβλήματος μας βρίσκεται υπό την αιγίδα του διεθνούς οργανισμού. Το γεγονός ότι είμαστε μικροί και αδύνατοι επιβάλλει ακόμη περισσότερο την αταλάντευτη προσήλωση μας στον ΚΧ του ΟΗΕ! Προσωπικά κατά την υπηρεσία μου στην Στρατηγική Δεξαμενή Σκέψης του ΟΗΕ (UNU) πυξίδα των γνωμοδοτήσεων μου είχα πάντοτε τον ΚΧ τις αρχές και τις αξίες της οποίες ο ΟΗΕ καλείται να υπηρετεί.

Ως προς το τρέχον καυτό θέμα της Συνθήκης Εγγυήσεως του 1960, όφειλε και δεν το έπραξε, άρα εξακολουθεί να οφείλει η πολιτική μας ηγεσία σε Αθήνα και Λευκωσία να αποτιμήσει την νομιμότητα της, ανατρέχοντας στον ΚΧ του ΟΗΕ, ως τον μοναδικό έγκυρο γνώμονα. Εξηγούμαι παραθέτοντας τα σχετικά εδάφια:

Κεφάλαιο 1: Σκοποί και Αρχές: Άρθρο 2.1

Ο  ΟΗΕ  βασίζεται  στην  αρχή  της  Κυρίαρχης  Ισότητας  όλων  των  Μελών του.

Κεφάλαιο 16: Διάφορες Διατάξεις: Άρθρο 103.

Αν  υπάρχει  σύγκρουση  ανάμεσα  στις  υποχρεώσεις  που  έχουν  τα  Μέλη  του ΟΗΕ σύμφωνα με αυτόν το Χάρτη και στις υποχρεώσεις που πηγάζουν από οποιαδήποτε  άλλη  διεθνή  συμφωνία,  θα  υπερισχύουν  οι  υποχρεώσεις  που  πηγάζουν  από αυτόν  το  Χάρτη.

Ερώτημα Πρώτο: Είναι ή δεν είναι η Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία Πλήρες, Ισότιμο και Κυρίαρχο  Μέλος του ΟΗΕ; Η απάντηση βασίζεται σε πραγματικά γεγονότα: Η ΚΔ είναι πλήρες ισότιμο και κυρίαρχο κράτος μέλος. Μάλιστα την πρόταση ένταξης της στον Οργανισμό έκανε η πρώην αποικιοκρατική δύναμη Μεγάλη Βρετανία (μαζί με την επίσης πρώην αποικία Κεϋλάνη). Ο πρώτος μόνιμος αντιπρόσωπος της Κύπρου στον Ο.Η.Ε., Ζήνων Ρωσσίδης, εκφώνησε τον πρώτο λόγο του στη Γενική Συνέλευση στις 21 Σεπτεμβρίου 1960).

Ερώτημα Δεύτερο: Υπάρχει ή δεν υπάρχει σύγκρουση της Συνθήκης Εγγυήσεως με τις πρόνοιες του ΚΧ; Απάντηση: Ασφαλώς και υπάρχει. Εφόσον η Συνθήκη Εγγυήσεως 1960 προβλέπει επεμβατικά δικαιώματα και ακόμα χειρότερα μονομερή (αν και υπό προϋποθέσεις), αντίκειται στις υποχρεώσεις των Κρατών Μελών συμφώνως προς τον Καταστατικό Χάρτη, ο οποίος καλεί όλα τα Κράτη Μέλη να σέβονται την κυριαρχία και να τηρούν την ισότητα μεταξύ τους.

Κατά συνέπεια, εφόσον ο Καταστατικός Χάρτης του ΟΗΕ υπερισχύει οποιασδήποτε άλλης διεθνούς συμφωνίας γίνεται σαφές ότι η Συνθήκη Εγγυήσεως καθίσταται στην πράξη άκυρη, ως αντιβαίνουσα τις πρόνοιες του ΚΧ. Διότι αλλιώς η ΚΔ δεν είναι κυρίαρχη. Η κυριαρχία είναι έννοια απόλυτη. Ένα κράτος δεν μπορεί να είναι ‘ολίγον κυρίαρχο’. Όπως μια γυναίκα δεν μπορεί να είναι ολίγον έγκυος. Ή είναι ή δεν είναι!

Ως εκ των ανωτέρω προνοιών του ΚΧ, η ακύρωση της Συνθήκης Εγγυήσεως έγινε αυτόματα με την ένταξη της ΚΔ στον ΟΗΕ (Σεπτέμβριος 1960). Εδώ και 56 χρόνια. Ο Καταστατικός Χάρτης είναι σαφής. Δεν επιδέχεται άλλης ερμηνείας! Οποιαδήποτε επαναφορά καθεστώτος εγγυήσεων, με επεμβατικά δικαιώματα οιασδήποτε μορφής, καταστρατηγεί βασικές πρόνοιες του ΚΧ ΟΗΕ.

As these lines are dawn the TAF are pounding Kurdish civilian areas in Turkey itself in an apparent effort to deny the right of existence to an entire people: the stateless Kurdish nation.

International peace is built upon respect of norms: charters, conventions, treaties that constitute international law. Respect of international law forms the sound foundation for peace, respect and tolerance between nations. Make no mistake: Turkey resigned to any title and right to the island of Cyprus by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923, Articles 20-21). Ankara has not respected the Treaty. Aided and abetted by Great Britain in the mid-fifties (London Conference 1955) Turkey has ever since re-entered forcefully the Cyprus frame. The core of the Cyprus problem is the denial of the unadulterated implementation of the right of self-determination of the people of Cyprus at the end of World War II, which would have meant the cession of the island to Greece in accordance with the crystal clear political will of the majority of Cypriots. (For a detailed account see the author’s book: Cyprus: The Struggle for Self-Determination in the 1940s, Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 2002). The solution of vassal state independence struck Zurich and finalized in London (February 1959) did nothing more than to exacerbate the feeling of injustice and frustration among the Greek majority on the island forming eighty per cent of the Cypriot population. More so, if it is taken into account that the Cypriots were, however indirectly, promised Enosis at the end of the anti-Nazi war effort. The Greeks of Cyprus fought heroically within the ranks of the British Imperial Army. Ten per cent of the Cypriot population were involved in the war effort. Naturally, the Cypriot war veterans felt bitterly betrayed as London refused to proceed with the cession of their island to mother country Greece. Some of them rebelled while in duty service (see above book).

The constitutional order established in the stillborn Republic of Cyprus was a recipe for disaster: the prerogatives granted to the small Turkish minority were such that rekindled the deep rooted Greek Cypriot majority feeling of injustice. The Greeks offered tombs of sacrifices in  the defeat of Nazism and in the consequent armed campaign for Enosis (1955-58), only to be denied their inalienable UN Charter endorsed right of self-determination! Makarios had little other option than propose through a political process the amendment of the unworkable constitution. The Turkish answer was the insurgency, the arming of Turkish Cypriot militants by Ankara and their hot headed drive for geographical segregation. When the freshly formed Greek National Guard engaged in self-defence purging operations to protect the Greek civilians from the indiscriminate attacks of Turkish Cypriot militants Ankara answered sending its Air Force dropping napalm bombs on Greek villages (August 1964).

We ought to submit the significant point of historical continuity in Turkish policy: there has been little if no change on Turkish war practices: war crimes committed on massive scale against unarmed civilian population. What does this practice amount to other than genocide? (Compare for instance the stubborn Turkish governments’ denial of the Greek Pontiac or the Armenian or the Kurdish genocide)

Incidentally, let us make no mistake: the only time napalm bombs were used in the annals of modern military history before the TAF dropped them in Tylliria Cyprus, was by the US Air Force in their effort to eliminate the Greek Communist guerillas (Aug 1949). Ironically, it looks fatal for the Greeks to be on the side of the winners in both World Wars only to be … ‘awarded’ the extensive destruction and loss of innocent human life caused by the impact of napalm and other cluster bombs on the population dropped by their Allies (remember also RAF’s notorious pounding of the poor neighbourhoods of Athens in the early stages of the Greek civil war: December 1944: a direct consequence of Winston Churchill’s order to the British military commander to rule Athens as an occupied city)!

What are the true immediate consequences of the Turkish invasion of 1974, the so called ‘peace operation’ that once more will be celebrated in the breakaway “TRNC”. Let us take a quick rough quantitative assessment – without an estimate the immeasurable cost of loss of human life and property:

• 5,000 Greeks dead
• 1500 missing – after 42 years the fate of only one about one third of this number of persons has been identified, UN sponsored process of identification stalled by refusal of Turkish authorities to grant access to TAF military archives
• 70% of gross output lost
• 65% of tourist accommodation
• 87% of hotel beds under construction
• 83% of general cargo handling
• 56% of mining output
• 48% of agricultural exports
• 46% of plant production
• 37% of the total area of the island occupied in a country where 83% of private land is Greek owned.

The 42 year-old consequences are immense and the cost of compensation to the Greeks of Cyprus easily runs into tens of billions of euros. Sadly, the current talk of Cypriot government officials is for a substantial part of the proceeds from future sale of natural gas to finance an agreed political settlement including compensation. What a great idea! The aggressor gets away, the partly recovered victim is asked to pay the damages bill …

What sort of logic is that? Is that part of a new policy of appeasement of Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Are we standing here in this 3000 year old Greek island just to appease the neo-Sultan lest he unleashes an unprecedented and ferocity blitzkrieg on the remaining Greeks of Cyprus?

On the other hand, the same day, 19^th May 1919, Mustafa Kemal, a German-trained Ottoman officer, landed in Trabzon (Trapezounta), regrouped dispersed vestiges of the routed Ottoman Army and embarked on his project to purge Asia Minor of Greek – and other Christian minority – presence. By the autumn of 1922 he managed to throw the Greeks into the sea. The burning of Smyrna in September sealed his total victory. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) assigned him the spoils of war (though divested him from any title or right over Cyprus).

Relatively recent efforts to institutionalize the 19th of May as European Day of Commemoration of the Victims of Kemalism have not produced the expected results. The most notable of such a campaign is by Greek intellectual Michalis Charalambidis, member of the Executive Committee of the International League for the Rights & Liberation of Peoples (LIDLIP). Charalambidis details his efforts for international recognition of the Greek Genocide in his remarkable book The Pontian Question in the United Nations ‘dedicated to the victims of the Pontian Holocaust’, published in two editions 2004/2009 by LIDLIP, Geneva.

Today, 19 May 2016, almost a century later, the Greek people of Cyprus, forming as ever the overwhelming majority of the island’s inhabitants, are struggling to prevent the creeping Turkification/Islamization of their island through a spurious ‘settlement’ that would mortgage future generations of Greeks to the whims of the neo-Ottomans in power in Ankara, Kemalist or Islamist their policy objectives are the same: domination in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Ill-conceived British and American Eastern Mediterranean policies in the past four decades introduced the despicable idea of ‘political equality between the two communities’ in the Cyprus-related UN resolutions nurturing Turkish Islamist expansionism. Make no mistake: this is the end result of consistently and systematically playing up the 18 per cent Turkish Cypriot minority by the West.

A latter-day reminder, if one is needed is offered by Milorad Dodik, President of the Serbian Republic within the Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation. In his recent visit to Cyprus invited by the EDEK Socialist Party leader, he told President Anastasiades indirectly ‘beware you are entering a political minefield field strewn by Ankara’. Dodik made an equivocal statement about Turkey’s covert interference in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a statement that leaves no room for doubt:  ‘Turkey’s support for one side only [i.e. the Ottoman time Islamised Bosnian Serbs] is a factor that contributes to the difficulty of making agreements in the country’. Dodik’s experienced remarks ought to sound alarms in the Greek leadership both in Lefkosia and in Athens. For who will pay the price? Who will suffer if Cyprus is turned into a covert Turkish protectorate?

The latest statement we had from the Chief Negotiator of the victimized side on the Cyprus equation i.e. the Greek majority, whose right to self-determination has been violated for 70 long years, came out last weekend. It reads as follows: Today we have the best chance ever for reunification of Cyprus which is why we should take advantage of it and do everything we can in this direction. This is a unique opportunity and this window of opportunity will not stay open forever.

Many observers wonder what has radically changed in the talks to make Andreas Mavroyiannis come out with such a strong and enthusiastic statement: mark the phrases he used: the best chance ever for reunification, unique opportunity and window of opportunity [that] will not stay open forever.

Before putting out such an unsubstantiated enthusiastic statement about the prospects of the talks Andreas Mavroyiannis ought to have answered a host of hard questions:

1. How does an apartheid system of guaranteed population and property majorities in the constituent states to be established promote in any conceivable way reunification of the island republic?
2. Let us, for the sake of the argument, or even for the sake of being positive and constructive, accept that the Turks should be allowed to have the above described majorities in their constituent state in the future (con)federation under discussion. Naturally, a crucial question arises: has the Turkish side accepted to substantially reduce the territory under their control?
3. Who is going to finance the huge compensations needed to be paid to the Greek Cypriots who were forced out of their properties by the use of force of the notorious Turkish Armed Forces – which incidentally, habitually massacre the Kurdish population day in day out in real time in Turkey’s southeast?
4. The autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus exists for almost two millennia. It is the oldest trusted institution among the eighty per cent of Cypriots who declare their loyalty to the Greek Orthodox faith. Thereby the Greek Orthodox identity and faith outlasts in historical presence and surpasses in loyalty any 20^th century (or 21^st for that matter) attempt at state building. In historical perspective, the frail and fragile state structures in the island of Cyprus turn pale before the endurance of the Church. Has the Turkish side agreed to the restoration and restitution of the Church’s inalienable properties and rights in the territory under their control? What will be the status of, say, the historical Diocese of Kyrenia – one of the three founding Dioceses of the Church of Cyprus – under the prescribed TC constituent state?
5. The running of three cumbersome state machineries in a Lilliputian (Con)Federal State structure presupposes a colossal, in proportion, budget: who will fund the three state machines – one of the ‘GC constituent state’, one of the ‘TC constituent state’ plus the (con)federal government administration?
6. Security and Guarantees. This is the most crucial aspect of the equation pertaining to securing the implementation of an agreed settlement. The Turkish (Cypriot?) side has not budged an inch from their insistence on Turkish guarantees. Ankara floats ideas for permanent presence of its troops, however reduced in number. Are we oblivious of the record of the Turkish Army? Another recipe for disaster?

There are no clear, let alone, just answers to the above crucial questions. The contorted answers floated in the international media outlets are undemocratic and unacceptable to say the least. A single example suffices: Mustafa Akinci, the TC leader, in a recent interview with the ‘Wall Street Journal’ unconvincingly spoke about loans and use of the natural gas proceeds to finance the settlement. He claimed that the latter belongs to both communities. Agreed in principle. But in what proportions? And what proportion of the NG proceeds should be pre-frozen for the settlement?

Part of the Cypriot press speculates that Andreas Mavroyiannis is just playing music to American ears in order to carry favour with the superpower in his bid for election as president of the next UN General Assembly. We do not wish to enter into this speculative discussion. We wish him good luck. For there is no doubt that his prospective election to this top UN job will be a great victory on the international plane for our semi-occupied Republic of Cyprus to whose continuity we all vow allegiance.

The two cornerstone charters agreed for building a better postwar world clearly illustrated the importance of self-government/self-determination in world affairs. On the one hand the Atlantic Charter (14 August 1941) stated, inter alia, self-determination and restoration of self-government to those deprived of it as ideal goals of the post-World War II international order.

On the other hand, the United Nations Charter, in other words the agreed constitution of the new world order (signed in San Francisco, US, 26 June 1945) dedicates a whole Chapter – XI: Declaration regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories – detailing the obligations of the UN member states towards leading their colonized peoples to self-government-self-determination.

In the above described context and more so taking into account that tens of thousands of Greek Cypriots joined voluntarily the anti-Nazi war effort enlisting in the Cyprus Regiment (CR) and the Cyprus Volunteer Force (CVF), the expectation of the islanders was that their overwhelmingly Greek island by culture, language and history, would be granted self-determination after victory in the World War. Time and again through their statements, petitions, protestations, representations to London, the Cypriots made loud and clear that their self-determination was nothing more and nothing less than Enosis: the political union of the three thousand year old Greek island with Greece.

After all, Winston Churchill and his officials, in their effort to enlist the Greek Cypriot patriots in the ranks of the British Army touted the slogan Fight for Freedom, Fight for Greece. Indeed, the Cypriots enlisted in their thousands in the two combat formations of the Cyprus Regiment and the Cyprus Volunteer Force fighting heroically in multiple theaters of war helping thus to defeat Fascism and Nazism. (All of which is amply documented in the author’s seminal book: Cyprus: The Struggle for Self-Determination in the 1940s. Prelude to Deeper Crisis, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2002). Alas their sacrifices met the intransigence and perfidious attitude of the postwar British governments which not only did not proceed with Enosis, as promised, but occupied Greece smashing the heroic Greek anti-Nazi resistance movement of EAM-ELAS plunging the Greek people into the misery of a deadly civil war. Greece and Cyprus came out of the war on the side of the winners, yet utterly distraught and defeated in achieving their national integration. (Save for the cession of the Italian occupied Dodecanese in 1947). By contrast, Turkey which betrayed its 1939 alliance with Britain (and France), stayed neutral and thus emerged intact from WWII was amply rewarded by perfidious Albion. From the mid-1940s to the late 50s, the British colonialists systematically and consistently upgraded the Turkish minority in Cyprus in their vitriolic alas successful push to frustrate the Greek rightful claim for Enosis. The British colonialists recruited and trained naïve and politically indifferent Turkish Cypriots, fielding them in the 1954 UN General Assembly to counter the Greek government’s first recourse to the world forum. Sadly, the British-American-Turkish machinations at the 9^th Session of the UN GA defeated Athens claim to self-determination for the population of Cyprus. The Greek sponsored resolution was voted down. The relevant resolution adopted (814/IX/17 Dec 1954) regrettably read: The General Assembly, Considering, that for the time being, it does not appear appropriate to adopt a resolution on the question of Cyprus; Decides not to consider further the item entitled: Application under the auspices of the UN, of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples in the case of the population of the Island of Cyprus.

That was the beginning of the end for Cyprus, the burial of the principle of equal rights and self-determination for the island’s population. The following year 1955, British duplicity and betrayal of WW II Greek heroism – duly recognized by Winston Churchill’s famous sound bite: We will not say hereafter that the Greeks fight like heroes, but heroes fight like Greeks! – assumed new despicable proportions: under the pretext of discussing ‘security issues in the Eastern Mediterranean’ the British colonialists trapped Athens into accepting an invitation to sit in London on the same table with Ankara, effectively reintroducing Turkey back into the Cyprus frame whereas Turkey resigned once and for all from all title and right on Cyprus under the Greco-Turkish Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Subsequently, British PM Macmillan blackmailed Athens by tabling his tripartite condominium plan which Ankara gladly accepted, promptly appointing its own Turkish governor to take residence in Nicosia. Harold Macmillan neutralized the Greek UN Charter-based demand for Enosis in such a decisive manner that soon after Athens was cornered into settling for a curtailed Cyprus independence with a despicable tripartite guarantor system that once more gave the upper hand on the affairs of the island to British neo-colonialism (see British ‘sovereign bases’ and a host of other military-related facilities) and Turkish expansionism (see Attila operation 1974 which ethnically cleansed the northern part of the island of Greek presence and led to the current dismemberment of the Republic of Cyprus).

What is the current moral conclusion drawn out of the distorted course of the Cyprus question post the 9^th of May 1945? What is the responsibility and obligation of the International Community (IC) today? An unfair settlement is a recipe for further disaster. The IC ought to frustrate plans that seek to implement a settlement plan that creates an apartheid regime in Cyprus, where the Greek majority with its long history of sacrifices for freedom and democracy is reduced to second class citizenship because of an unethical and abhorrent favoring of Ankara’s expansionist designs not only on Cyprus but importantly on the entire east Mediterranean region and beyond (see Erdogan’s manipulation of the current refugee crisis).

On this very anniversary of Victory Day 1945, let us remind the UN high officials commissioned by the IC to offer their good offices in the search for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem to revisit the provisions of the UN Charter which they are bound duty to serve!