Kat Theophanous, the Victorian Labor Member for Northcote today, August 2, addressed her parliamentary colleagues, to remind them of the 49 years of Turkish occupation of Cyprus’ north.
The member for Northcote spoke with unreserved forthrightness about Turkey, “illegally seizing and violently occupying 36 per cent of the island.”
The Turkish invasion of July 20, 1974, commemorated by Cypriot diaspora across Australia, and globally with statements released from peak Cypriot and Greek organisations in the United States and Canada.
Since “Türkiye invaded Cyprus” Theophanous said, “hundreds of thousands of people” were displaced.
The politician said that she and eight other Greek Australian parliamentarians passed a resolution at the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association general assembly condemning “the illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus by Türkiye.”
“Together we condemned the illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus by Türkiye, which contravenes international law and UN resolutions, and we called for the right of return for Cypriot refugees to their ancestral homelands.”
Theophanous said that World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association appeals to all parliaments, the Victorian one “to fully support the UN-led efforts for a peaceful, just and viable Cyprus settlement.”
“The international community, bar Türkiye, recognises sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus over the entire island of Cyprus, yet for nearly half a century Cypriots have endured the consequences of invasion. Both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots have suffered. To this day Nicosia remains the world’s last divided capital, Theophanous reminded her peers in the house.
She referred to the Green Line Πράσινη Γραμμή, Turkish: Yeşil Hat that cuts through the island and stretched for 180 kilometres as “a wound that never healed.”
UNFICYP troops, commonly known as the Blue Helmets, oversee the 1974 Turkish invasion cease-fire line and maintain control over the island’s buffer zone. Despite improved people-to-people relations, approximately 1,000 incidents occur in the buffer zone annually, according to UNFICYP records.
In her firm rebuke, Theophanous called Turkey “invaders” who fly their “giant Turkish flag in the northern mountains” and drew from her own family’s experience of expulsion and relayed stories of killing of civilians by invading Turkish forces.
“To the north-east is my mother’s village of Asha – we do not go back there – it is occupied by Turkish military, who rounded up the Greek civilians, executed them and dumped their bodies into mass graves.”
The MP pointed again to the UN resolution and the international community who “repeatedly called for the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus and a peaceful resolution.”
The parliamentarian said that the Cyprus invasion and occupations mirrored the “chillingly similar scenario to Ukraine now.”
She ended by expressing her solidarity with Ukraine, “I stand in solidarity with them.”
