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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s latest risk to invade Israel shouldn’t be taken evenly and betrays Ankara’s continued regional ambitions, in line with an official from Cyprus.
“Any threat being made publicly has to be taken very, very seriously here and we think that the international community cannot ignore or disregard the threats,” Konstantinos Letymbiotis, the official authorities spokesperson for Cyprus, instructed Fox News Digital.
“History itself has proven this, respect for international law is fundamental, and it goes without saying that all of us should be strongly committed to it,” Letymbiotis mentioned. “Unfortunately, as a country, we have been experiencing for the last 50 years a continuous ongoing increase in illegal occupation of 37% of the Republic of Cyprus territory by Turkey.”
“We know exactly the consequences of an illegal invasion, and we take every threat very seriously,” Letymbiotis mentioned.
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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan observes a navy train in Izmir, Turkey, on June 9, 2022. (Xinhua through Getty Images)
Erdoğan on the finish of July instructed to his social gathering that Turkey “must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine” and, additional, “just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them.”
The feedback drew a scathing rebuke from Israel, with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz evaluating Erdoğan to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying that Erdoğan ought to “remember what happened there and how it ended,” referring to Hussein’s execution by hanging in 2006.
President Nikos Christodoulides in the course of the memorial service in Nicosia, Cyprus, on July 20, 2024. The service marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Turkish invasion, which led to the occupation of 37% of the island, at Makedonitissa Tomb, the place the our bodies of the troopers killed in the course of the battle are buried. (Kostas Pikoulas/NurPhoto through Getty Images)
When beforehand questioned in regards to the Turkish president’s feedback, an embassy spokesperson within the U.S. instructed Fox News Digital, “Turkey has no issue with the Israeli people at all. Our problem has been with the brutal acts and irresponsible steps of the current extremist Israeli government.”
Letymbiotis argued that a part of the difficulty is that the world now not has “so-called frozen conflicts” and it grows “more evident than ever, and more especially in our region” with more and more intense preventing.
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With Turkey particularly, Letymbiotis factors to the continuing “Turkification” of elements of Cyprus – altering names of geographical websites and “systematic destruction” of cultural and historic heritage – as one of many principal indicators that Turkey seeks affect and management quite than any altruistic drive.
“It is in the context of Turkish revisionism, expansionism in the neo-Ottoman approach,” Letymbiotis mentioned. “This is not the first time we have seen this kind of approach from Turkey.”
A duplicate of the flag of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on the slopes of Mount Pentadaktylos within the occupied a part of Cyprus, on Aug. 10, 2024. Next to it’s the motto “Happy is he who calls himself a Turk.” (Christoph Reichwein/image alliance through Getty Images)
“In the case of the region and especially in the case of the narrative that Turkey and President Erdoğan specifically has adopted, we should also highlight the timing that they choose to continue this narrative and the position taken at the time when the government of the Republic of Cyprus president himself is making intensive efforts to resume negotiations,” he added.
Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and divided it alongside ethnic strains throughout a time when the island aimed toward uniting with Greece. Only Turkey acknowledges a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence, and though Cyprus is a European Union member, solely the south enjoys full membership advantages.
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A Turkish helicopter takes half in a navy train within the jap Mediterranean on Jan. 12, 2024. (Orhan Cicek/Anadolu through Getty Images)
Cyprus has in flip reached out to different nations, corresponding to Armenia, which have lately felt the burden of Turkey’s regional ambitions: Karabakh, as Erdoğan referred to it, was an enclave of round 120,000 Armenians who lived inside Azerbaijan till they have been kicked in a foreign country final yr and their land seized by Baku.
Cyprus additionally performed a key function within the U.S. plan to deploy humanitarian help to Gaza as Israel continues its operations within the nation. The European Union and United States in March established a sea route that will begin at Cyprus and ship help to ports on the Gaza Strip.
“The Cypriot initiative will allow the increase of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, after a security check according to Israeli standards,” Lior Haiat, former spokesperson for Israel’s international ministry, mentioned on social media platform X in March.
A crane unloads meals packages over a makeshift port on the Gaza Strip, Saturday, March 16, 2024. (World Central Kitchen through AP)
Letymbiotis hopes that this cooperation, born out of the “best period” of Cyprus-U.S. relations, will proceed to enhance the nation’s standing and international notion, resulting in additional advances.
“Our relations with the United States of America are based on a foundation of mutual trust,” Letymbiotis mentioned. “Cyprus is no longer approached by the U.S. only through the prism of the Cyprus problem, but also as a reliable, stable partner.”
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“The role of Cyprus and the level of cooperation has been substantially highlighted from both the evacuations of citizens in crisis in the region and also through the very important domestic initiative that created the maritime border to provide humanitarian aid to people in Gaza.”
However, he lamented that Turkey stays an issue because of its membership in NATO, the place the nation can use its veto energy to troubling impact, corresponding to when Sweden wanted to acquiesce to Ankara’s calls for earlier than Erdoğan agreed to permit it to affix the alliance.
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A soldier holds the Cypriot flag in the course of the annual navy parade to mark the Independence Day of Cyprus within the divided capital of Nicosia, Oct. 1, 2022. (Danil Shamkin/NurPhoto through Getty Images)
“Seeing how Ankara behaves with the issue of Swedish membership in the North Atlantic alliance, think what would happen in the case of Cyprus if we applied for membership, an issue that Turkey won’t even discuss,” he mentioned.
The Turkish embassy didn’t reply to a number of Fox News Digital inquiries in regards to the Cyprus spokesman’s feedback by the point of publication.
Fox News Digital’s Caitlin McFall and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
