Fifty years ago, on July 15, 1974, the Greek military junta, a friend of the Nixon-Kissinger administration and the CIA, toppled the President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios. The Greek junta aimed to eliminate the Cypriot president, install a puppet regime on the island, and negotiate based on Acheson’s plans (1960s). The plans involved partition and double enosis (dual union) to reconcile the two allies and integrate Cyprus into NATO. Makarios opposed them because of concerns about the Turkish presence in the north, potentially leading to a complete Turkish takeover of the island.
Turkey seized this opportunity to invade Cyprus, claiming it was to prevent Greece from annexing the island, restore the disrupted constitutional order, and protect the Turkish Cypriot community. The Turks referred to their invasion as “a peace operation.”
Not so, says Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist and political analyst who writes extensively on Cyprus, human rights, Turkish politics and history, religious minorities in the Middle East, and antisemitism. Bulut holds degrees from Boğaziçi University and Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. Her articles have appeared in Modern Diplomacy, The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Times, the Middle East Forum, The American Conservative, Providence, Forbes, the Israel National News, Al-Ahram, and Gatestone.
Turkey experienced two coups in 1960 and 1971 before invading Cyprus. Then, six years after the invasion of Cyprus in 1980, came the most horrific Turkish coup d’état, claiming thousands of lives. How can Turkey, which could not draft a civil constitution for itself for 34 years after this coup, claim the ability to restore another country’s constitutional order?
The human rights record of Turkey during and after the occupation shows clearly that the brief Greek coup d’état was just a pretext for Turkey to invade Cyprus. You don’t torture, rape, or forcibly displace innocent civilians after seizing their property if your only aim is to restore constitutional order and protect people there. What about Turkey and Cyprus? Part 2
Bulut wrote.
Then, there was the second Turkish invasion on August 14. This attack, following the coup’s collapse and the island’s return to constitutional order and a ceasefire agreement on July 22, undermines Turkey’s claim that it invaded Cyprus to restore legitimacy. During this attack, Turkey increased its control from six to thirty-seven percent of the territory, causing many Greek Cypriots to flee their homes and lands in fear.
What infuriates Bulut the most is that her Turkish compatriots refer to their invasion as a “peaceful operation” and continue to celebrate it to this day as such. Here is what she stated:
Turkey calls the 1974 invasion of Cyprus ’a peace operation.’ But a peace operation’ doesn’t commit rape, murder, ethnic cleansing, or the destruction of a country’s cultural heritage, nor does it continue for more than 45 years.
https://x.com/bulutuzay_/status/1549662493231947778
On another occasion:
It is hard to believe, but it is true: The Turkish invasion of Cyprus is officially celebrated by Turkish officials as ‘the peace and freedom festival’…
As the whole world witnessed, what Turkey did in 1974 and still celebrates is the planned executions, deaths, destruction, massive ethnic cleansing, and ongoing cultural and demographic rape that it has committed in Cyprus.
What happened was an invasion, and Turkey remains an alien invader in Cyprus.
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9339
https://www.parikiaki.com/2014/08/what-about-turkey-and-cyprus
She was just as critical of Erdoğan’s claim that “there is no country called Cyprus” and Turkey’s continual refusal to recognize the Republic of Cyprus.
Erdoğan, who has a great deal of sympathy for Hamas, does not seem to have the least of it for the Republic of Cyprus.
Last year, he even said at a meeting at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest that ‘there is not a country called Cyprus.’
He added: “There is the Southern Greek Cypriot Administration. There is a Green Line, and then in the northern part of it is the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. According to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, this region’s new name is the Turkish State of Cyprus. The Kofi Annan plan also names it like that.”
(Ibid.)
Regrettably, no one at the conference corrected Erdoğan’s inaccurate statements, Bulut noted. Then she went on:
Of course, there is a country called the Republic of Cyprus. The whole world recognizes this, although Turkey has occupied the northern part of it for 40 years. There is also the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,’ which Turkey recognizes only. The international community correctly calls it the Turkish-occupied territory of the Republic of Cyprus. (Ibid.)
As for the genuine reasons Turkey invaded the island, Bulut was very explicit:
However, the main reason for Turkey’s colonization of Northern Cyprus was announced by former Turkish deputy prime minister Tuğrul Türkeş in 2017. ‘There is misinformation that Turkey is interested in Cyprus because there is a Turkish society there,’ Türkeş said. ‘Even if no Turks lived in Cyprus, Turkey would still have a Cyprus issue, and Turkey can’t give up on that.’ Turkey is occupying Northern Cyprus for geopolitical reasons. The occupation enables Turkey to dominate the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey Ravages Cyprus:: Gatestone Institute
Attempts to destabilize Cyprus and justify a Turkish invasion and partition go back to the 50s and 60s. A notorious example of such incidents, Bulut explains, is the 1963 bathtub massacre in Nicosia. Nihat Ilhan, a Turkish doctor who was an officer in the Turkish Army in Cyprus, killed his wife and three children in the heart of the Turkish quarter of Nicosia. The murderer vanished, taken away by the Turkish authorities. Turkish officials lied about the killer’s identity, staged the scene, and blamed Greeks for the crime.
“Turkish nationalists have used the 1963’ bathtub massacre’ in Nicosia to generate hostility and mistrust within the Turkish Cypriot community against Greeks and to justify the Turkish military invasion of Cyprus. But what’s the truth behind it?” Bulut tweeted on January 2, 2021.
https://twitter.com/bulutuzay_/status/1345323719124791303
Turkey’s preparation for invasion also involved covert violent attacks against Turkish Cypriots. These actions aimed to escalate intercommunal conflicts and further alienate the Turkish-Cypriots from their Greek Cypriot counterparts.
For example, Bulut pointed out:
General Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu, a Turkish army officer, said in televised comments in 2010 that Turkey burned a mosque during the Cyprus conflict ‘to foster civil resistance’ against Greeks on the island and that ‘The Turkish special warfare department has a rule to engage in acts of sabotage against respected values [of Turks] made to look as if the enemy carried them out.
Turks celebrate 1964 napalm bombing of Cyprus | Israel National News).
“If a lie is repeated often, it becomes the truth. The Turkish propaganda for Cyprus is perhaps one of the longest and most systematic propaganda ever conducted in world history,” Bulut explained on another occasion.
In one of the most heartbreaking articles, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Northern Cyprus: Confessions of a Turkish Cypriot Mass Murderer,” Bulut presents an interview aired live on Turkish Cypriot T.V., with 84-year-old Turgut Yenağralı, a former member of the paramilitary Turkish Resistance Organization (TMT). Founded in 1957, the TMT was notorious for its criminal activities in Cyprus and called for partitioning the island. During the interview, Yenağralı proudly recounted his involvement in the mass murder of Greek Cypriots, explaining his motivations. The interview shed light on Turkey’s long-standing criminal activities in Cyprus before and after the island gained independence in 1960.
Bulut does not hesitate to criticize the global community and the West for their lack of action regarding Cyprus:
Since 1974, Turkey has refused to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding the immediate withdrawal of its troops from Cypriot soil. The global inaction in response to Turkish aggression encourages Mr. Erdoğan, the president of a so-called “ally” of the West, to threaten Cyprus with yet another military assault. How Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatens the U.S. with an ‘Ottoman slap’ - Washington Times
She is equally passionate about issues of justice concerning the Armenians, Yezidis, Assyrians, Kurds, Jews, and women in Turkey. Following are some of her articles on these critical issues:
1915 Armenian Genocide persecuted Yishuv Jews, as well
Armenians of Artsakh: An Indigenous Nation Targeted by Genocidal Regional Powers - Modern Diplomacy
Armenians Are In Danger of Ethnic Cleansing Once Again - The American Conservative
Journalist Uzay Bulut Unveils Turkey’s Genocidal Past, Ongoing Human Rights Violations-Forbes
Turkey Uses Mass Detention Campaigns against Kurds - Providence
Turkey’s “Peace Operations” ‹ New Eastern Politics
Turkish President Under Fire for Views on Women-VOA News
Turkey: Murder of Women Reaches Epidemic Proportions :: Gatestone Institute