DENIZLI, Türkiye
Where are the world’s super power and its international institutions while Israel is massacring women, children, and the elderly in Gaza, the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) asked on Tuesday.
At a conference on “The Strategic Importance of the TRNC in the Turkic World” held by Pamukkale University in Denizli, Türkiye, Ersin Tatar stressed that the Northern Cypriot administration has been monitoring the situation in Gaza “very well.”
“Where is the UN? Where is the US? Where are the others?” he asked.
“This is how cruel the world can be,” he lamented. “We went through the same processes in the 1960s when nobody acknowledged us,” he added, referring to Greek Cypriots’ ethnic attacks from the 1960s until 1974, when the Turkish Peace Operation was launched to protect the island’s Turks.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing nearly 21,000 people, including UN staffers. It has attacked hospitals, UN schools, and refugee camps, claiming that they were used by Hamas, but without convincing proof.
Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
Human rights organizations have slammed Israel for its war tactics, calling it “collective punishment” of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Decades-long conflict
The Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their own safety.
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece’s annexation of the island led to Türkiye’s military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. The TRNC was founded on Nov. 15, 1983.
It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece, and the UK.
The Greek Cypriot administration was admitted to the EU in 2004, the same year the Greek Cypriots thwarted a UN plan to end the longstanding dispute.
