16 Turkish Cypriot organisations lash out at Turkey, call for Cyprob solution

A group of 16 left wing Turkish Cypriot organisations, known as the “This homeland is ours platform”, have released a statement condemning Turkish actions in Cyprus, highlighting the problems they believe the north faces, and calling for a solution to the Cyprus problem.

The group was initially created in January 2021 but had been dormant since April 2022, and has now decided to reconvene. However, some of the platforms original contributing organisations, including the north’s main ‘parliamentary’ opposition party CTP, are currently not a part of the reconvened platform.

The reconvened platform consists of other, smaller, political parties including the Independence Road, the TDP, and the YKP, as well as political action groups and trade unions.

They said, “our country has been turned into a sub-administration of the Republic of Turkey for many years, and the imposition and attacks which have been carried out on our economy, politics, society, culture, health, and education system have reached the highest level recently, and have brought Turkish Cypriots to the point of our extinction and made our country inhabitable”.

They went on to point to issues such as the rising cost of living, “to which those who claim to rule the country remain indifferent in accordance with the instructions they receive”, as well as alleging that citizenship of the ‘TRNC’ is handed out to Turkish citizens in order to influence the results of elections.

They also spoke about an increase in criminal activity and traffic accidents in recent times in the north, as well as saying that the north’s natural resources are being “sold or donated to foreigners or beneficiaries of the AKP”, Turkey’s ruling political party.

Regarding education, they mentioned that after February’s earthquakes in Turkey, some Turkish Cypriot schools held lessons in tents after their schools were deemed unsafe.

They also noted the decision of the north’s ‘education ministry’ to allow mosques to hold Quran lessons over the summer, saying they are “handing children over to Imams and increasing the pace of social engineering works by maintaining the policies of religionisation”.

The statement concluded with words about the Cyprus problem, with the platform saying it “has decided to start all kinds of fights against the social extinction which is being carried out through impositions, economic packages, and collaborative appointees against us Turkish Cypriots in our usurped homeland”.

“[The platform] has decided to fight for a Cyprus problem solution and for Turkish Cypriots to play a part in the solution process”.