Melanie Phillips
Wednesday, 28th July 2010
Another crucial point about Turkey further underlines the sheer amoral perversity of David Cameron’s gushing endorsement of that country, analysed below. As Martin Packard, a former UN mediating officer in Cyprus points out in a letter to the Times (£) today, for the past 36 years Turkey has been illegally occupying part of Cyprus:
In advocating Turkish membership of the EU Mr Cameron should remember that Turkey is an invader and illegal occupier of Commonwealth and EU territory, in contravention of numerous UN and EU resolutions. The aim of bringing Turkey into the EU is a sensible and commendable one, but Mr Cameron might best advance Turkey’s cause by persuading it to withdraw its troops from Cyprus.
But all Cameron said about this in his speech was
...we want you to continue to work towards a solution in Cyprus
to help
...convince the doubters
that the case for Turkey's membership of the EU was
indisputable.
It’s also striking, isn’t it, how there are never any Unison or university boycotts of Turkey, or angry demonstrations outside Turkish airline offices, or denunciations of Turkey’s illegal occupation by NGOs or the UN.
For as Leo Rennert observes on American Thinker, noting an ad in the New York Times against the Turkish occupation:
In these 36 years, the ad asserts, Turkey ethnically cleansed from their homes 200,000 Greek Cypriots, killed 6,500 of them, deployed 43,000 occupation troops, brought in 160,000 Turks to cement its occupation, destroyed churches, synagogues and cemeteries, while it continued to oppress Kurds in Turkey.
The ad contrasts these horrors with a pro-Western, anti-terrorism record of the other half of the island where a Greek-Cypriot government recently confiscated Syrian arms destined for Hamas, refused use of Cyprus ports to the Turkish flotilla, while partnering with Greece to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, and worked closely with the U.S. on terrorism issues.
But now Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister has placed himself firmly on the side of the destroyers of human rights and against those who resist tyranny. Some have speculated that he has done so at the behest of Obama, who is keen (of course) for Turkey to join the EU. If so, it would add bitterly ironic reinforcement to the impression that Cameron is a mirror image of his role-model Tony Blair. Blair was styled ‘Bush’s poodle’ for yoking Britain to the White House in the defence of the west. Cameron may have volunteered to be Obama’s poodle, yoking Britain to the White House in the cause of surrendering the west.
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