Turkey being dicks near Cyprus

[Velasco]

Meanwhile, Bibi is planning another 1060 houses in East Jerusalem, in order to appease his Jewish Home partners. There is another plan in the queue with 1531 additional houses. Earlier this month, 2500 houses were approved in the Givat Hamatos colony, south of "the indivisible capital of the Jewish state". Just speaking of dickishness.

[Velasco]

How is that even relevant, yes dead0man support Israel, but that doesn't make the Turkish behaviour on Cyprus more acceptable in any way or scale, in fact bringing it up only make pro-Palestinians seem hypocritical.

It's relevant to dickishness. As of late, our dear poster has a strange fixation with Turkey (even weirder than his support of Bibi, Ecce Homo). The guy has been reaching some remarkable absurdity heights in misreading articles in order to claim that "Turkey sucks". Maybe the Turkish behaviour with regard to this incident is a sample of dickishness. Is it relevant?. As said before, dickish behaviour is quite common. I'd only pay attention if dickishness is accompanied by criminal actions. Do you need examples of criminal behaviour in the Middle East?

Focusing on the incident between Turkey and Cyprus, you should remember that there is an ongoing conflict since 1974:

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Regardless what you think of which side has the reason (in my opinion, none), the fact is that Turkey doesn't recognise the Cyprus jurisdiction on those waters. The Greek sector of Cyprus is internationally recognised, whereas the Turkish puppet in the north of the island is not. However, negotiations for Cyprus reunification collapsed by the end of 2012 and were suspended in the beginning of 2013 because of a change of government on the Greek side. In February 2014 both sides renewed negotiations, but one of the main obstacles is the conflict on the exploitation of the reservoir placed to the south of the island. The company which discovered the reservoir is Noble Energy, with headquarters in Texas and with a 30% share of Israeli capital (according to the article, there are also French and Italian companies operating in the area). Turkey-Israel  relations were friendly in the past, but worsened since the Israeli attack on a relief fleet to Gaza in May 2010 (9 Turkish casualties). Simultaneously, relations between (Greek) Cyprus and Israel improved remarkably by that time. Also, the Cyprus entry in the EU was seen in Turkey as an obstacle placed intentionally by those countries reluctant to admit Turkey. As long as both sectors in Cyprus don't agree a reunification (and the conflict seems insoluble, because they disagree on the wedding contract's terms) or going in their own way in a friendly manner, bad blood between Turkey and its Western allies will continue. Also, dickishness has some justification if you try to look the incident from the Turkish perspective, which doesn't mean that I agree or side with the Turkish administration. On the other hand, I think some dickishness is justified on my side given the plain hackishness of certain posters

[Velasco]

1. Its not constructive to let our disagreement over the Israel/Palestine conflict spill over to other topics.

Maybe. However, two points:

a) More than with disagreements, I have an issue with misinformed hackishness and trivial spamming. Sorry if the prospect of building 5000 new houses in East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories outrages me more than this issue, which resembles me the occasional incidents around the Rock of Gibraltar (I couldn't care less).

b) Sadly, the Israel-Palestine conflict pollutes everything in the Middle East. I pointed a couple of issues on the relations between Israel and Turkey/Cyprus and the economic interests of Israel in oil explorations.

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True, and those aspects are worthy of being discussed and criticised, preferably from a more informed perspective than the usual in western media. However, this issue is related with the Turk-Cypriot conflict started 40 years ago. The prime minister in 1974 was Bülent Ecevit (CHP) and not Erdogan or Davutoglu. I suspect that with a 'secular' government in office, the nationalistic dickishness would be even stronger.  As said before, the present context in the Middle East affects in some way the developments in the issue between Turkey and Cyprus.

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Disagree on unification. The attempt to establish the Enosis was sponsored by a reactionary military junta ruling in Greece by that time, while Turkey was a military managed secular democracy. As Ernest pointed out, the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 was characterised by a strong nationalistic dickishness from both sides which ended in ethnic cleansing and population exchange. The Megali Idea sponsored by Venizelos was the antecent of the Greek-Cypriot Enosis. The dream of uniting Greek speaking populations in Asia Minor and the Aegean, at the expense of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, ended in a bloodbath and with a Greek presence in Anatolia which lasted millenia. Ultimately, it was an awful outcome for the Greek nation. The Turkish minority in Cyprus had every right to fear a reunification between Greece and Cyprus, given the historical context.

[Velasco]

Politicus:

1) How on Earth do you want a serious discussion in a thread entitled "Turkey being dicks near Cyprus?" The very title is trolling, to begin with. Of course, the Israeli policy on settlements and incidents between Turkey and Cyprus are different issues. However, given the emphasis put on the title, I mentioned a example of "being a dick" to our dear poster. That's all. Yes, the Israel-Palestine conflict provokes strong emotions. Certain posters on this Forum with narrow worldviews are constantly trolling on them, I'm fully aware of that.

On the other hand, the regional context and Israel in particular play some role on this issue. Admittedly, it's more related with economic interests than with the hideous settlements in and around Jerusalem. The drive of the Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East is relevant, as well the drive in the relations between the two countries involved in the conflict and Israel.

2) You do realise that the "attitude towards Cyprus" and human rights in Turkey are separate issues, don't you?   

The last question is complex and debatable, to say the least. While issues like the repression of the Gezi Park protests are worrying and regrettable, by no means is comparable the situation in the SE of Turkey with regards to 'secular' governments. Kurds are comparatively better with the AKP than they were under previous administrations, which denied every right to the Kurd minority, banned the Kurd language and exercised a brutal repression. While the Kurd question is still unsolved and is worsened by the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq, it would be unfair to say that Erdogan didn't take some little but symbolic steps. It's a fascinating issue but somewhat off-topic, don't you think?

3) The ideology of the Greek military government, as well the Kemalist nationalism, are relevant to understand events in 1974. Are right to self-determination and the merger of two independent countries the same issue? In any case, ethnic minorities like the Kurds in Turkey or the Turks in Cyprus are subject of rights. How can you say that the authoritarian nature of the Greek junta is not important? If that government was a threat to the very Greek citizens, Turks in Cyprus had more reasons to fear discrimination or some kind of ethnic cleansing.

4) The memory of the Greco-Turkish War was deeply rooted in Turkish and Greek peoples in 1974, 52 years after its conclusion. I guess that even nowadays persists in some way. I'm Spaniard and I can tell you about the lasting consequences of our Civil War.

In any case, I doubt that Enosis is on the table right now. The pending issue is the reunification of Cyprus in terms acceptable for the two main communities living on the island.

[Velasco]

My favorite part was when you said you couldn't care less about this issue.  You've put a lot of time into this issue you don't care about.  And I'm pretty sure you drop into every thread about Gibraltar too.

Did I put more time into this issue than you trolling into this board, zeroman? While I don't care too much about incidents like this, I have some interest in regional developments. On the other hand, it would be funny to drop in a thread related to Gibraltar, in order to support a military invasion. Not because of patriotic reasons (I couldn't care less), only because I believe in the abolition of tax havens (preferably by force ).