DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland, current president of the European Union (news - web sites), has issued a postage stamp which appears to confuse new EU-member Cyprus with the Greek holiday island of Crete.
The stamp shows a map of the enlarged EU with the old member states coloured blue and the new states in yellow.
Cyprus is positioned just south of Greece and looks suspiciously like Crete in shape. It is longer and thinner than the real Cyprus and has a rectangular bump on the bottom of it, just like the Greek island.
Officially the whole island joined the EU, but Turkey is currently occupying the northern half of it. As that's occupied area, there are a few problems with different laws there.
Imagine the following situation:
The troops of Switzerland occupy the whole northern Italy. Of course there will officially be Italian laws there, because the people are still the same, there just happens to be some illegal troops on that area.
But in the other hand, those troops use the Swiss laws and don't respect the Italian laws, because for them the northern Italy is now a part of Switzerland.
The Italian government would probably consider those north Italians Italians and would allow them to go to for example Sicily. But the Swiss army (with their knives ;)) could go to that part, as well. Without a passport.
Also the people of the Turkish Cyprus are official citizens of the EU. They just can't be given all of the EU rights, because we can't know for sure who of them are actually people of Cyprus and who are from Turkey.
Actually there's about the same problem in Iraq right now. USA (compare to Turkey) is occupying most parts of Iraq (compare to Cyprus). What laws should be obeyed there? At least the US soldiers don't seem to care about the Iraqi laws too much. At least in their bases they act just as if they were in the USA.
Dakkus wrote:Officially the whole island joined the EU, but Turkey is currently occupying the northern half of it. As that's occupied area, there are a few problems with different laws there.
Imagine the following situation:
The troops of Switzerland occupy the whole northern Italy. Of course there will officially be Italian laws there, because the people are still the same, there just happens to be some illegal troops on that area.
But in the other hand, those troops use the Swiss laws and don't respect the Italian laws, because for them the northern Italy is now a part of Switzerland.
The Italian government would probably consider those north Italians Italians and would allow them to go to for example Sicily. But the Swiss army (with their knives ) could go to that part, as well. Without a passport.
Also the people of the Turkish Cyprus are official citizens of the EU. They just can't be given all of the EU rights, because we can't know for sure who of them are actually people of Cyprus and who are from Turkey.
Actually there's about the same problem in Iraq right now. USA (compare to Turkey) is occupying most parts of Iraq (compare to Cyprus). What laws should be obeyed there? At least the US soldiers don't seem to care about the Iraqi laws too much. At least in their bases they act just as if they were in the USA.
First of all there is no Turkish Cyprus.There is only the Republic of Cyprus and an occupied part of the island after the turkish invation.
You are right that the whole island joined EU but only those who have passport from the Republic of Cyprus are European Union citizens (in the north they use Turkish passports or "passports" from the "Turkish republic of northern Cyprus",which recognized only by Turkey,therefore they can't travel with these abroad).If the problem ever be sold,then it would be like the union of East and West Germany.The citizens from the occupied part will become also EU citizens just like the citizens of East Germany in the past.
Of course,T.Papadopoulos promised to help the Turkish-Cypriots in the north (and only them,not those who came from Turkey) to reach at the economic level of their countrymates in the south.
Which is logical, but not entirely fair, since the Anatolians that were forced to move to Northern Cyprus can't entirely be blaimed. I can also understand the position of the Turk Cypriots, who think that without the Anatolians, they would have too little to say...
It should be possible to start with a clear page, but that will be difficult, since history books in Northern and in Southern Cyprus aren't correct, leave alone complete...
That's the current situation, and let's be honest, both parties are very ethnocentric about their lecture of the past. They're very likely indoctrinated that it won't work without the Turks. Nothing is more fragile than an identity. If they percept themselves as Turks, and less as Cypriots, and historical education will have this result, then there will be only a feeling like someone of Cos is not the same as someone of Thessaloniki, but not a deep difference because they're both Greek.
I can tell you this, because I see in my country, that the Belgian identity has almost completely faded away, and mostly only since about 10 years, and more people describe themselves as Flemmings or Walloons. There was a common identity, don't be mistaken, but it is disappearing.
