Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are the same, President says

“Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are the same”, said President Nikos Christodoulides on Wednesday.

He added that “this principle is what has guided me ever since … in my efforts to reunify our homeland, our island,” he added.

He was speaking at the opening of a retrospective painting exhibition in Nicosia by artist Umit Inatci, who he called a “dear friend and renowned Cypriot artist”.

He added that Inatci’s work “represents the values he embraces as a particularly sensitive sould, with several philosophical concerns about humanity, life, and our world”.

He went on to mention a “long-standing friendship” between himself and Inatci which developed from the time the pair worked together in London, and said their friendship grew based off “our shared desire for the reunification of our country”.

“Working with Inatci, I really learned about the Turkish Cypriot community, I learned to take in a lot of information, to understand its concerns, its anxieties, its expectations, and thinking back to the beginning of my career as a diplomat, our friendship was unique for me,” he said.

He added, “as a loyal Cypriot, Umit, through his works of high artistic and aesthetic value with the special technique which characters of them … chart the path of reconciliation between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, because his work always has Cyprus as a centre point of reference.”

Speaking of his own experiences, he pointed out that he was a few months old in July 1974, and that despite the fact his parents both came from mixed villages, and both told them Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots used to live together, he never had the opportunity to experience this for himself.

“Sometimes, the impression you have of something is completely different [from reality]. It wasn’t until I met Mr Inatci that I realised that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are the same,” he said.