Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday marked Peace and Freedom Day within the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), celebrating the 51st anniversary of the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation.
Erdogan is visiting the TRNC to attend occasions commemorating the navy operation that Türkiye launched in response to a Greek Cypriot coup geared toward annexing the island to Greece.
“Wholeheartedly” congratulating the Turkish Cypriot individuals, Erdogan mentioned on X: “On the 51st anniversary of the Cyprus Peace Operation, I remember with respect our martyrs who gave their lives for the Turkish Cypriot people’s struggle for existence, and I offer my gratitude to our heroic veterans.”
– Decades-long downside
Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, regardless of a collection of diplomatic efforts by the UN to attain a complete settlement.
Ethnic assaults beginning within the early Nineteen Sixties pressured Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for his or her security.
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup geared toward Greece’s annexation of the island led to Türkiye’s navy intervention as a guarantor energy to guard Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a consequence, the TRNC was based in 1983.
It has seen an on-and-off peace course of in recent times, together with a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland underneath the auspices of guarantor international locations Türkiye, Greece, and the UK.
The Greek Cypriot Administration entered the EU in 2004, the identical 12 months that Greek Cypriots single-handedly blocked a UN plan to finish the longstanding dispute.
Source: www.anews.com.tr