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Some treaties and organisations consider Georgia, Armenia etc to be in Europe, others dont, I guess its up to them what continent they conisder themselves to be in. smile_o.gif

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Ukraine and Belarus joining the EU?  biggrin_o.gif Excuse me *bwa ha ha ha* Ahem. Perhaps in the nearest future... in the next 400 years  wink_o.gif  Ukraine and Belarus will show Russia their asses and will keep saying that they have  always been west-oriented. We call them "natural Europeans". They call us with words which will be deleted by an eye of the censorship of moderator and i will get forever banned.

And if Chechnya joins the EU then... then... i just can't imagine it. Need more crack  biggrin_o.gif

Go Russia! Join the EU! Then NATO! It will be the greatest disaster for the NATO countries. Our mechanics will simply dismantle the tanks, weaponory, etc into parts and sell them separately for caviar and vodka. Mmmm caviar. Gotta find more parts.

Never mind, i had to say something  smile_o.gif

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nice to see that EU is finally getting its sense back and try to build a powerbase instead of staying fragmented. only goes to show that in front of money, adversity could take a back seat. guess US's sole status as bully on the block did not resonate well with europe's collective memory of what it once was.

hopefully, EU can do better than Charlemagne, but yrs of difference needs yrs to fix.

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but those countries which are mentioned in the quote, aren't they in asia? So, why don't we build up a AEU, an Asian European Union smile_o.gif

India, Russia, China, Pakistan, just to name a few of them, that are countries with a big potential, but they got a few problems with human rights at the moment I think ^^

And why not a World Union? No customs, no borders, no control, no national identities. Money taken from the richer and given to the poorer until the rich are poor and the poor are rich.

rock.gif

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It is not bourgeois at all. Dont give me bullshit about your family not being able to afford a maid. Considering your level of sophistication I am damn sure you stem from a good background financially wise. And dont play the poor guy to me wink_o.gif !

As you know we have many poles in gemany that try to make their daily living. We usually pay them "black" (no taxes). Not because we couldnt afford it but like this they can keep their hard earned money and surivive with what they have without asking for social support money. They are often far more noble with their working attitude than most germans.

I am kind of embarrased of my own nation. And I hope the new countries will show what it means to work hard for daily living. They might think we look down on them but given the economical progress of slowenia I doubt there is a way to be arrogant. Their economy is sky-rocking. Teach those fat ass germans (including me) what real work means. I guess we forgot!

Getting a little off-topic:

I, personally, do get your point, but the reason that hired housekeeping is "unethical" from a scandinavian point of view is:

By hiring someone to do the cleaning of your own home you imply that you have a higher social standing than them.

Or to it in another put in another way: If I were hiring someone to clean up my place I would feel that I was degrading them, which would make me feel rather uncomfortable in doing it.

It is along the same lines that makes it degrading for a wife to stay at home (= not having a day-time job).

This results in the ideal for a scandinavian family: Both the husband and wife works full-time and have equally succesfull careers. In their sparetime they split the work in the house equally, preferably without gender preferentials. Especially when it comes to raising children is it equally shared.

When it comes to having kids the trend is aiming towards the husband and wife having the same amount of "maternity leave" from work for raising the babies.

Socially the ideal is that there are no such thing as a social standing. In reality there is people that falls through the system: Junkies, chronically unemployed people etc. But the conception of this problem is more that it is a failure in the social/employment system, than their personal fault.

I fully understand and agree to your view (if I understand it correctly) that is a socially responsible act to employ people for doing housework, and in that way helping them to making a living. It's just a cultural thing that I don't feel good about doing it. It's not that these people would suffer in Sweden (or Denmark where I come from), it's just that that the scandinavian societies have chosen a different way of caring for them.

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I, personally, do get your point, but the reason that hired housekeeping is "unethical" from a scandinavian point of view is:

By hiring someone to do the cleaning of your own home you imply that you have a higher social standing than them.

Or to it in another put in another way: If I were hiring someone to clean up my place I would feel that I was degrading them, which would make me feel rather uncomfortable in doing it.

It is along the same lines that makes it degrading for a wife to stay at home (= not having a day-time job).

This results in the ideal for a scandinavian family: Both the husband and wife works full-time and have equally succesfull careers. In their sparetime they split the work in the house equally, preferably without gender preferentials. Especially when it comes to raising children is it equally shared.

When it comes to having kids the trend is aiming towards the husband and wife having the same amount of "maternity leave" from work for raising the babies.

Socially the ideal is that there are no such thing as a social standing. In reality there is people that falls through the system: Junkies, chronically unemployed people etc. But the conception of this problem is more that it is a failure in the social/employment system, than their personal fault.

I fully understand and agree to your view (if I understand it correctly) that is a socially responsible act to employ people for doing housework, and in that way helping them to making a living. It's just a cultural thing that I don't feel good about doing it. It's not that these people would suffer in Sweden (or Denmark  where I come from), it's just that that the scandinavian societies have chosen a different way of caring for them.

I agree with you.. I would never no matter how rich I was hire someone to clean my house or cook my food. I would rather give the money to charity.

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And why not a World Union?

Absolutely, and if capitalism survives, that's where we going. Free markets and free trade are a key factor in economic progress.

Quote[/b] ]No customs, no borders

Yes. And once you grow up and start earning money of your own, start paying taxes etc, you'll realize the benefits of it.

Quote[/b] ]no control

No. Global control. Same rules for everybody. Much more efficient. Do you understand that with every country having its own set of odd rules is in the way for free trade?

Quote[/b] ]no national identities.

You're confusing a union/federation with a nation state. A union like the EU is not a nation state. On the contrary, it's on a level above, to avoid the errors of the nation state such as tying the economy and rules to such irrelevant things as nationality.

Quote[/b] ]Money taken from the richer and given to the poorer until the rich are poor and the poor are rich.

rock.gif

Money distributed until trade can be made at equal terms. Until all countries have a relevant industrial production base so that they can contribute, rather than recieve charity. Exploiting third world countries has some very small and short term values. It is much more benifitial to us if they have a proper industry and economic infrastructure so that we can trade goods that we want. Who do you think is more valuable trading partner today - USA or Nigeria? Do I need to explain to you why that is?

Another important point that I fear will be lost on you is that free trade prevents war.

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As target it sounds very good.

But i can see some problems. Politicians r like generals - they r preparing to war which just eneded smile_o.gif

There should be ban for politicians older than lets say 50 - they remember too much wink_o.gif from the one side, from other sometimes (i think) they r not "flexible" enough to deal with our world which is changing like crazy.

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I drove to Prague on Thursday and returned last night.  My journey there lasted 6 hours, crossing  2 borders separating 3 new member states.  The return trip took less than 5 hours, including a stop at the Brno Tesco to load up on Mikulov Svatovavrinecke.

A bunch of Czech friends took me out to dinner Friday evening to celebrate my birthday.  The waiter warned them to pay the bill by midnight or pay 5% more taxes resulting from EU membership.

The fireworks, concerts and great weather were mostly regarded as part of a fun excuse for a party, although everyone seems to remain sceptical concerning the real occasion.

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I think a world union is not possbile, becuase we got contries like the USA who would never join! the only chance would be, to isolate the USA and show the people, that a world union has much more advantages than staying in your little cage. wink_o.gif

I've talked about that already, and I think that we (the human being) are definatly not ready for such a union, coalition or how you want to call it, not now, because we've got too many conflicts still running (india-pakistan for example)

And you shouldn't forget, that nearly 1 billion people got no running water(?? don't know how to say it in english), I think we should solve this problem first, before we think about a world union!

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<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">I think a world union is not possbile, becuase we got contries like the USA who would never join! the only chance would be, to isolate the USA and show the people, that a world union has much more advantages than staying in your little cage.

Sounds like mob rule to me.

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Quote[/b] ]no control

No. Global control. Same rules for everybody. Much more efficient. Do you understand that with every country having its own set of odd rules is in the way for free trade?

What do you mean with global control from not having customs and borders? You won't be able to control anything, and you won't know anything. Criminality will be harder to prevent and criminals harder to catch. Common trading rules can be set without losing customs & borders.

Quote[/b] ]No customs, no borders

Yes. And once you grow up and start earning money of your own, start paying taxes etc, you'll realize the benefits of it.

I don't feel like waiting, so why don't you tell me? How would I as a tax payer be more satisfied if there were no customs or borders? And how does that compensate for the losses?

Quote[/b] ]no national identities.

You're confusing a union/federation with a nation state.

Hell no I'm not. Without borders people will move freely, live and work wherever they want. One country would no longer mean one people. Thus it'd undermine national identities. You may love that thought but not all do.

Quote[/b] ]Money taken from the richer and given to the poorer until the rich are poor and the poor are rich.

rock.gif

Money distributed until trade can be made at equal terms. Until all countries have a relevant industrial production base so that they can contribute, rather than recieve charity. Exploiting third world countries has some very small and short term values. It is much more benifitial to us if they have a proper industry and economic infrastructure so that we can trade goods that we want. Who do you think is more valuable trading partner today - USA or Nigeria? Do I need to explain to you why that is?

It sounds like a happy ending, but the method Å• la Robin Hood is what I don't like. You'd be punishing successful countries for their productivity. And all the money that'd be sent over seas during years would be enough to produce the goods that we want ourselves back home. There are other ways to support the development of third world countries than by communistically giving your money away.

Another important point that I fear will be lost on you is that free trade prevents war.

I believe free trade would prevent very few wars; almost all conflicts are caused of other reasons.

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Quote[/b] ]no control

No. Global control. Same rules for everybody. Much more efficient. Do you understand that with every country having its own set of odd rules is in the way for free trade?

What do you mean with global control from not having customs and borders? You won't be able to control anything, and you won't know anything. Criminality will be harder to prevent and criminals harder to catch. Common trading rules can be set without losing customs & borders.

Not at all. Criminal investigations won't be hindered by jurisdiction. Global crime is already a fact so a global police might not be such a bad idea. As it is now customs create a market for criminals while borders facilitate them since they can simply hide in another country. Globalization is a fact, there is no turning around the clock. The question is do we choose to adapt our government systems to face the new reality or do we stick to antiquated rules.

Quote[/b] ]I don't feel like waiting, so why don't you tell me? How would I as a tax payer be more satisfied if there were no customs or borders? And how does that compensate for the losses?

Your hard earned money will not be taxed and taxed and taxed again for each country in the production line. Take your computer for example. It is probably made of parts coming from at least 20 countries around the world. Each of these countries slap on taxes and slap on import/export fees. Guess who pays for that? Yepp, the end consumer.

Quote[/b] ]Hell no I'm not. Without borders people will move freely, live and work wherever they want. One country would no longer mean one people. Thus it'd undermine national identities. You may love that thought but not all do.

One country does not mean one people. It's the fact of the situation today. And yes, ultimately it undermines the original cultures. But that has gone far beyond the turning point. And be thankful for that, otherwise you'd be chewing surströmming instead of pizza. A free market economy proliferates the goods that are in demand. We assimilate parts of other cultures that we find benificial as others assimilate parts from our culture. There will still be differences for a variety of reasons (geographical location etc) but a large part will be globalized. It already has been. I'm guessing that you more often wear jeans and not the traditional folk costume of Uppland, right?

The national borders are artificial nowdays anyhow, so why not adapt the governmental systems to deal with realityh?

Quote[/b] ]It sounds like a happy ending, but the method Å• la Robin Hood is what I don't like. You'd be punishing successful countries for their productivity. And all the money that'd be sent over seas during years would be enough to produce the goods that we want ourselves back home. There are other ways to support the development of third world countries than by communistically giving your money away.

It's not giving away. Not for a second. It's investing. With third world countries becoming productive members of the market we get our investment back countless of times. I'm not talking about some pissy welfare aid, but real investments into infrastructure and industry.

Now while a global union would be impossible for a number of practical reasons today, unless we blow ourselves up or something, it is going to happen one day. Today the differences are too big. We don't have the resources to make such investments today and the political and social realities of various countries in the world are too different.

In Europe however it is very possible. As a matter of fact if you didn't notice, it's happening right now. Sure there are some differences between economies, but they are marginal. Best example is Irland who went from being one of the poorest European countries to being one of the riches. And now it's industry and service sector are quite important to Europe as a whole. And in this round Irland will not be the recipient of money, but will help restore the economic infrastructure for the new members. And you'll see, in 10 years they'll be on the same level as all other EU countries. And that will strengthen EU as a whole and be benificial for all EU citizens.

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Quote[/b] ]It sounds like a happy ending, but the method Å• la Robin Hood is what I don't like. You'd be punishing successful countries for their productivity. And all the money that'd be sent over seas during years would be enough to produce the goods that we want ourselves back home. There are other ways to support the development of third world countries than by communistically giving your money away.

You could apply this to Sweden for example, should Stockholm and Malmo break away from the rest of the nation to form independent city states because the smaller towns "hold them back"?

In economics you cannot have everyone at an equal par, otherwise there would be no need for economics  tounge_o.gif

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Quote[/b] ]

In '74, this crazy Greek Cypriot priest (makarios) wanted "Enosys", the unification with Greece. This violated the treaty, hence Turkey sent an army. Fortunately for NATO, we were ruled by a corrupt American-sponsored dictatorship that didn't care about these treaties, and thus sent off about two platoon's worth of soldiers to have them slaughtered by 10,000 turks.

If we had a proper government at that time, they would most likely have sticked to the treaties, thus turning Cyprus into the first big battlefield in a long war between us and them.

In all fairness to archibishop Makarios, he wasn't that crazy. In fact, the EOKA-B coup, sponsored by the Greek Junta (supported by the US), took place to OUST Makairos and his government (and in the process, they blew to tiny little bits the American ambassador). In the early days of the coup, Makarios fled the country and appealed for international help. The powers to guarantee Cyrpiot independence were Greece, Turkey, and the UK.

The new government on Cyprus (headed by some nutty dude who'd made a name for himself in EOKA-A assassinating British soldiers, then mysteriously being the first "reporter on the scene") published some press releases, assuring everyone that the disposition of the Ethnic Turks (who were enclaved and protected by the UN since the early sixties) was an "internal Cypriot matter". Turkey appealed to the UK (which had military bases on the island) to intervene. The UK refused. Turkey invaded.

The Turkish invasion more or less killed the the Cypriot coup attempt. The Republic of Cyprus stated that ethnically Turkish Cypriots were more than welcome to stay in the areas the government still controlled. Very, very few elected to stay.

In I think 81, Turkish set up the northern part of Cyprus as the so-called "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". Only Turkey recognizes it as a state.

So, in short:

A) Archbishop Makarios, not only the head of the Cypriot government, but also the autocephalous head of the Orthodox Church on the island, was relatively speaking a moderate, and it was his government that was overthrown in favor of enosys with Greece. If you want to blame him, blame him for his interest in the non-aligned movement or something. This was a coup, and one not probably not supported by a good part of the citizens.

B) The only government on the island recognized outside of Cyprus is that (Greek-run) in the South.

C) Turkey has good historical reason to show concern for ethnic Turks following some sort of unification. The history of Cyprus from 1960-1974 was not a pleasant chapter for the Turks on the island.

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I think that letting Cyprus join before an unification was a big mistake from the side of the EU. Unification should have been a condition.

As it was now, the Greek part of the island had no reason whatsoever to make any compromises. As part of the EU their position is much stronger and they can now more or less dictate the terms for unification.

What did the EU get? A border dispute. Originally, one of the main requirements for EU membership was that the candidates were not allowed to have any border disputes with other countries. This time they look through the fingers for Slovenia (it has a dispute with Croatia about a small stretch of land that would give Slovenia access to the sea) and completely ignored for Cyprus. While for the Solveinan case it was a triviality, for Cyprus it is an essential factor.

They should have never let Cyprus in until the matter was closed.

So why was it? Becuase of the fact that private British citizens own large part of Cyprus. It used to be a British colony and the UK badly wanted them in ASAP.

IMO a big mistake. They should have made it clear years ago that no unification = no membership.

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I agree that Cyprus should not have been able to join until the dispute was resolved. Making it clear to the Greek cypriots that they would enter the EU whether or not they agreed to the plan was indeed a mistake. But

Quote[/b] ]So why was it? Becuase of the fact that private British citizens own large part of Cyprus. It used to be a British colony and the UK badly wanted them in ASAP.

This has recieved no coverage (i am aware of) here and i have not heard it reported elsewhere. May i respectfully enquire as to where you got this information (assuming it is not merely speculation)?

For instance i find no suggestion of such an explanation in this Guardian section on Cyprus

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This has recieved no coverage (i am aware of) here and i have not heard it reported elsewhere. May i respectfully enquire as to where you got this information (assuming it is not merely speculation)?

For instance i find no suggestion of such an explanation in this Guardian section on  Cyprus

I watched a documentary on the subject a while ago. They said that UK and Greece pushed for the Cypriotic membership. France and Germany requested a referendum while Italy plus the Nordic countries wanted the membership to depend on the outcome of a referendum. The compromise was the UN deal, which was seen as a clear British-Greek victory as nobody realistically thought that it would pass.

As for web references, I'm sure that one could find the proper documents on the EU main website, but it's a jungle so I'll give you a few others that I found via google:

[bBC]

Quote[/b] ]Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said Britain, a key proponent of enlarging the European Union, and a strong supporter of Cyprus's case for membership, said it would be a great deal easier to push through if a settlement was reached.

http://www.hri.org/news/cyprus/cypio/1997/97-11-28.cypio.html

Quote[/b] ][03] Britain and Greece agree on Cyprus' EU accession course

Britain and Greece reiterated yesterday that the settlement of the Cyprus problem should not be a precondition for the island's accession to the European Union.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis had a meeting yesterday in London with his British counterpart Tony Blair during which the Cyprus problem was one of the main issues discussed.

In statements after the meeting Mr Simitis said they had agreed that "the EU accession talks with Cyprus should begin as expected, without a solution to the Cyprus problem being a prerequisite."

The two Premiers also agreed a Cyprus settlement should be based on numerous UN resolutions, adopted since the 1974 Turkish invasion and occupation of 37 percent of the island's territory.

Other issues discussed in the meeting were the EU enlargement, the monetary union, the situation in the Balkans as well as bilateral relations.

Also, an interesting read as background information:

Cyprus: A slice of Britain abroad [bBC]

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Thank you for replying promptly.

I have to say im disinclined to view the 'Hellenic Resources Network' as a quite objective source but i appreciate that you probably just snatched the first relevant few links (I did a brief search and i didnt find much which is why i raised it).

Quote[/b] ]Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said Britain, a key proponent of enlarging the European Union, and a strong supporter of Cyprus's case for membership, said it would be a great deal easier to push through if a settlement was reached.

Mr Cook said: "The first and important thing is to get both sides around the table."

'Strong supporter of Cyprus's case for membership' may imply what you suggested but the rest seems to suggest the British were interested in a settlement.

I dont think the military bases are necessarily that relevant. If anything EU membership would make it easier for cypriots to pursue legal action against the British government over such issues as the communication masts.

Nonetheless i concede that what you have suggested is possibly the (or at least an) explanation for the willingness to permit the entry of cyprus without a solution. If it is the case then i disagree on principle with the policy.

Still im optimistic that EU entry will improve the situation somewhat. The EU is giving aid to the Turkish cypriots and in time a new solution will be found. Turkey is desperate to join the EU so i cant imagine theyll want to stir up too much trouble just now.

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'Strong supporter of Cyprus's case for membership' may imply what you suggested but the rest seems to suggest the British were interested in a settlement.

The British were very interested in the settlement. So was everybody. It was just a question of priorities. For Britain it an EU membership was a higher priority than the settlement. Even the Greek wanted a settlement, just not under the conditions given by the UN plan (which IMO indeed did suck on several points).

In one of the more odd moments in the history of the UN, Britain joined by USA put up a security council resolution endorsing the Cypriots to vote for unifications. The Russians vetoed it because they said that it was interfering with the democratic principles of an poll. I still can't understand why on earth that lame resolution was put forward and even more why Russia vetoed it. Could you imagine anybody changing their mind in such a poll if there was a security council resolution - given that the poll was UN organized anyhow?  rock.gif

Quote[/b] ]I dont think the military bases are necessarily that relevant. If anything EU membership would make it easier for cypriots to pursue legal action against the British government over such issues as the communication masts

It's not the military bases per se. The UK owns a large portion of the island. I don't know if you've been to Cyprus, but it is very very.. British. A large portion of the private estates in the tourist areas are owned by Brits.

Quote[/b] ]Nonetheless i concede that what you have suggested is possibly the (or at least an) explanation for the willingness to permit the entry of cyprus without a solution. If it is the case then i disagree on principle with the policy.

Yepp, I agree. IMO the error was two-fold. First of all the UN plan was not good. It called for Turkish troops staying on the island and did not resolve the issue of returning private property confiscated during the conflict. The second issue was that the poll was a lame duck as the Greek part of the island could only benifit if they waited until they were under the protective wings of the EU. They are guaranteed to get a better deal.

Quote[/b] ]Still im optimistic that EU entry will improve the situation somewhat. The EU is giving aid to the Turkish cypriots and in time a new solution will be found. Turkey is desperate to join the EU so i cant imagine theyll want to stir up too much trouble just now.

Yeah, the Turkish part of Cyprus has been living in isolation for 30 years. They have every reason to want unification, not to mention EU membership. They are the easy part of the equation - as the poll results showed. Turkey doesn't have a say in this because just as you said, they are interested in an EU membership. They'll probably agree to just about anything. Unification should have been set as a requirement for membership, if for nothing else than for the internal stability of the Union.

The thing is that the Turkish Cypriots will get an unfair deal. Cyprus is EU now and per definition has its full backing. Nobody in the EU is going to side against an EU-state in favour of a non-EU state in a matter like this. Tough luck for the Turkish Cypriots, but I guess this kind of situation is hardly unique in the history of Europe.  rock.gif

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Quote[/b] ]

In '74, this crazy Greek Cypriot priest (makarios) wanted "Enosys", the unification with Greece. This violated the treaty, hence Turkey sent an army. Fortunately for NATO, we were ruled by a corrupt American-sponsored dictatorship that didn't care about these treaties, and thus sent off about two platoon's worth of soldiers to have them slaughtered by 10,000 turks.

If we had a proper government at that time, they would most likely have sticked to the treaties, thus turning Cyprus into the first big battlefield in a long war between us and them.

In all fairness to archibishop Makarios, he wasn't that crazy. In fact, the EOKA-B coup, sponsored by the Greek Junta (supported by the US), took place to OUST Makairos and his government (and in the process, they blew to tiny little bits the American ambassador).  In the early days of the coup, Makarios fled the country and appealed for international help. The powers to guarantee Cyrpiot independence were Greece, Turkey, and the UK.

The new government on Cyprus (headed by some nutty dude who'd made a name for himself in EOKA-A assassinating British soldiers, then mysteriously being the first "reporter on the scene") published some press releases, assuring everyone that the disposition of the Ethnic Turks (who were enclaved and protected by the UN since the early sixties) was an "internal Cypriot matter". Turkey appealed to the UK (which had military bases on the island) to intervene. The UK refused. Turkey invaded.

The Turkish invasion more or less killed the the Cypriot coup attempt. The Republic of Cyprus stated that ethnically Turkish Cypriots were more than welcome to stay in the areas the government still controlled. Very, very few elected to stay.

In I think 81, Turkish set up the northern part of Cyprus as the so-called "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". Only Turkey recognizes it as a state.

So, in short:

A) Archbishop Makarios, not only the head of the Cypriot government, but also the autocephalous head of the Orthodox Church on the island, was relatively speaking a moderate, and it was his government that was overthrown in favor of enosys with Greece. If you want to blame him, blame him for his interest in the non-aligned movement or something. This was a coup, and one not probably not supported by a good part of the citizens.

B) The only government on the island recognized outside of Cyprus is that (Greek-run) in the South.

C) Turkey has good historical reason to show concern for ethnic Turks following some sort of unification. The history of Cyprus from 1960-1974 was not a pleasant chapter for the Turks on the island.

Meh, my history on Cyprus is a bit sketchy. Partially due to the fact that it is very hard to get an objective view from the people that had lost relatives/friends there.

Denoir, I agree with you 100%, the Annan plan was flawed in two major areas, which, funnily enough, the Switzerland talks solved partially. Unfortunately, Mr. Denktash didn't see the necessity to travel to Switzerland.

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Denoir, I agree with you 100%, the Annan plan was flawed in two major areas

Imagine my surprise, and I thought that you would take the Turkish position wink_o.gif

The issue of the Turkish military is as I see it a non-issue. They should not be there. Minority rights will be guaranteed by EU law. There is no justification for those troops being there.

The return of pre-conflict property ownerships is a more sticky issue. If we did that in Europe, we would have to go back before the Roman Empire to settle who should 'rightfully' own what. It's not very practical. Granted, for Cyprus we'd only have to look back 30 years and most of those that lost property are still alive today. Still, you'd have to kick out the current owners who most likely bought the property fairly (from those that originally captured it from the original Greek owners). Overall it's a nearly impossible project. I know that they attempted stuff like that in many countries after the fall of communism (after ww2 the state had confiscated a lot of private property) and it did not work out at all.

So on that issue, I'm more inclined to think that a fresh start would be much more practical. Recognize that war is a bad thing and that people got screwed, and move on. It's a temporary issue anyway. In 100-200 years, who's going to care anyway?

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So what´s the right approach for the Cyprus dilemma ?

Or will the people themselves take the rudder oneday and unite ? What are the proposals for that ?

I think it´s kind of funny what quarrel is about that little isle biggrin_o.gif

Umm but well, it looks like they still need UN´s to keep them apart. sad_o.gif

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