Kurtulmuş attacks Annita Demetriou in Rome: a “coup” by the Greeks in 1963, a “Peace Operation” in 1974

The speaker of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Numan Kurtulmuş, attacked the President of the Cyprus House of Representatives, Annita Demetriou, at the European Conference of Presidents of Parliament of the Council of Europe, hosted by the Italian parliament in Rome. According to the announcement of the Turkish Assembly, Kurtulmuş asked for the floor on Friday, October 16, after Demetriou had spoken, to reply to what Ankara calls “baseless allegations” about Turkey’s role in Cyprus. The announcement calls the Republic of Cyprus the “Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus”.

“If we are talking about an invasion or a coup in Cyprus, this was not an invasion by the Turkish side, but unfortunately a coup against the legitimate government, which was overthrown by an attempt of the coup-plotting Greeks and the Greek Cypriots in favour of Union,” Kurtulmuş said. He presented, as he put it, “three historical dates”: 1960, when the Republic of Cyprus was founded with Britain, Turkey and Greece as guarantor powers; 1963, when in his words “the junta supporters in Greece and the pro-Union forces in Cyprus” dissolved the joint government; and 1974.

“Peace Operation”

According to the Turkish Assembly, Kurtulmuş claimed that Turkey had raised the issue for eleven years in all international organisations, spoke of “massacres” in dozens of villages by “pro-Union invaders”, and described the 1974 invasion as a “Peace Operation” carried out under Turkey’s rights as a guarantor power. “In Cyprus, Greeks and Turks are two peoples who exist historically. Ignoring the Turkish side, no solution can be found in Cyprus. Until the end of the world the Turkish Cypriot people will continue to live on the island as equal citizens,” he said.

The Assembly’s announcement does not report what exactly Demetriou said. In his main speech at the conference, on renewing the rules-based international order, Kurtulmuş called for Israel’s observer status in the Council of Europe to be suspended, according to a second announcement of the Assembly. On the war in Ukraine, he said in the same speech that it has turned into a war of attrition affecting all of Europe.

The exchange in Rome took place in the same week that President Nikos Christodoulides and the Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman met under the United Nations, after the President’s remarks about a “window of opportunity” on the Cyprus problem.