A/33/PV.45 General Assembly

As members will recall, the General Assembly at its 5th plenary meeting, held on 22 September 1978, decided that when considering item 28 it would invite the Special Political Committee to meet for the purpose of affording the representatives of the Cypriot communities an op- portunity to speak ID the Committee in order to express their views, and that the Assembly would then resume its consideration of the item, taking into account the report of the Special Politicai Committee. 2. I should like to suggest that the General Assembly should invite the Special Political Committee to meet tomorrow, Tuesday, 7 November, in order to hear the views of the representatives of the Cypriot communities. The General Assembly will then resume its consideration of this item on Wednesday, 8 November. May I take it that the General Assembly agrees to the procedure I have sug- gested?

I should like to inform the Assembly that previously, for its meetings devoted to the question of Cyprus, the Special Political Committee was provided with verbatim records. May I take it that the General Assembly wishes the same procedure to be fonowed for tpe meetings which the Special Political Committee will hold on the question of Cyprus?

I should also like to propose that the list of speakers in the debate on this item be closed tomorrow, Tuesday, 7 No- vember, at 5 p.m. May I take it that the General Assembly agrees to that proposal?

This moment, which marks the commencement of the discussion of the problem of NEW YORK Cyprus in this parliament of the people of the world, is a sacred moment in my country. At this very moment the people of Cyprus, 6,000 miles away from here, are observing aID-minute silence in honour of the principles that this Organization and this Assembly stand f~x aria also as a show of respect for their own invincible and indestruc- tible will to free their country from the foreign presence, military and other, which obscures life and happiness and has only brought darkness, despair and calamity to the people of Cyprus, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots alike. 6. Cyprus is one of the smallest countries in the world, but the pursuit of virtue has nothing to do with size. There is an equal moral value in a position of principle taken by a single individual as in that taken by the biggest nation in the world. For every Cypriot living on this planet, there are 7,000 people of other nationalities. Yet we feel that our voice can be heard loud and clear in this Assembly, as long as we stay on the side ofjustice. 7. My country was physically crippled by the Turkish invasion. And yet, in the whirl of events and in the midst of the misery brought abolit by such a sacrilegious act, I state categorically that, if we had to choose, w.e would rather be the victims than the aggressors. 8. It is, of course, very easy, albeit shameful, for one country physically to cripple another country, that is 80 times smaller. It is very easy, albeit shameful, for a country which is an arsenal of the most modern war equipment consisting of hundreds of warplanes and warships and of thousands of tanks and napalm bombs to attack and overpower a defenceless neighbour. It is very easy, albeit shameful, to exterminate, annihilate and destroy the weak and unarmed. 9. Cyprus was crippled physically, but never morally. I stand here in your midst fully authorized by even the most suppressed and bereaved of my fellow citizens to say that we refuse to succumb to the law of the jungle; and I am proud to know that this voice of resistance is but one among many in the halls of this Organization. The South West Africa People's Organization, the Patriotic Front, the Palestine Liberation Organization and many others are today symbols of dignity in a world that is being corroded . by the principle of power as opposed to the power of principles. The evolution of technology and the accumula- tion of power tend to obliterate the simple and yet fundamental laws of balance and justice that go to the root of human existence. However, it appears that there are nations and peoples that are determined to carry the flag and pass it to the generations to come. 797 A/33/PV.45 11. Before I left Cyprus I made a statement in which I expressed my concern at this sheer contempt for the voice of the representatives of the peoples of the world. Some people even criticized me for making such a statement a few days before the Assembly was due to consider the question of Cyprus. However, I believe that, on the contrary, the right moment to raise such an issue is precisely now, when the General Assembly is about to consider our problem. Nothing is to be gained by avoiding the truth. We all know very well that the decisions of this Organization are often treated with such contempt by the countries that are expected to comply with them that, unless the situation is contaL'led, and soon, confidence, particularly that of the smaller nations, will evaporate. This undesirable a.nd dangerous state of affairs has been the subject of comment and criticism on hundreds of occasions: The Secretary-General, Mr. Waldheim, in his report on the work of the Organization dated September 1978, states: "In the present political circumstances, the United Nations is seldom, if ever, in a position.to enforce its decisions and has little means of making them effective in the face of determined opposition. This fact has tended to downgrade the prestige and effectiveness of the Organization'and to detract from its primary purpose as the impartial and respected guarantor of international peace and security. The practical result has been that some small States no longer turn to the United Nations as the protector of their sovereign rights." [See A/33/], sect. ILl 12. The United Nations resolutions on Cyprus abound in provisions clearly directed at Ankara that can be imple- mented only by Turkey. Instead of complying with them, the Turkish Government resorts to distorted interpretations ':> justify its non-compliance. Where are we heading then? Are we to accept the audacious statement of Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic that "... justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger"? Is this Organization prepared to. allow countries like Turkey to act in absolute defiance of its decisions, without taking some drastic steps? Are we to remain apathetic and inactive observers of conduct that will eventually shatter confidence in morals and principles? If we, as responsible Governments, tolerate crimes such as that committed against Cyprus and are reluctant to impose sanctions against the culprit, how can we ever expect to persuade our own citizens to compiy with our internal laws? How can we tell those citizens that the same type of crime as may be committed without punishment at the level of international relations should be punishable at the level of private individuals? And, if we tell them that, shall we ever convince them? And shall we ever convince our 13. As I have just mentioned, the attitude of Turkey during the four and a half years since it invaded and partly occupied Cyprus has been that of inventing distorted interpretations of rE:solutions and making excuses for its wrongful actions. It has even reached the point of calling black "white" and accusing us, the victims of its aggression, of intransigence and a negative approach. It is as if an armed person were to invade your house, occupy by force four of its 10 rooms and then call you intransigent because you refused to negotiate the division of your own house into two smaller houses, one of which would belong to the trespasser. This is really nothing short of adding insult to injury. 14. Despite the fact that the United Nations, by repeated resolutions, has demanded the withdrawal of all foreign armed forces from the Republic of Cyprus, and despite the fact that those resolutions, adopted after the Turkish invasion, are directed clearly and indisputably at Turkey, that country maintains that the,fe has been no aggression by it against Cyprus. It maintains that there has been a very civilized peace operation for the return of normality that Turkey was compelled to undertake in conformity with its obligations under the Treaty of Guarantee.! That is what we were told by Turkey in this Assembly last year. So poor Turkey was compelied to take this burdensome action; being a law-abiding country, it had to comply with its legal obligations, which the other guarantor, the United King- dom, did not care to fulfil. And the problem is that all the delegations here have failed really to grasp and realize Turkey's noble motives and objectives. They have been unable to elevate themselves to the exalted level of Attila morals. They have misjudged Turkey, and they have been unfair to it. So why should Turkey comply? 15. Of course, the representative of Turkey failed to elaborate on some details of Turkey's noble operation; but, after all, those are unimportant details. The London Sunday Time.~, in its issue of 23 January 1977 in which it published extracts from the 20o-page report of the Eu- ropean Commission '1f ~ 1uman Rights, said, "The report ... is a horrendous indi9tment against Turkey and its soldiers and civilians ...". The report was circulated by a number of organizations, and those who read it were left shocked and speechless. The unfortunate fact for Turkey remains that if one is to describe its "law-abiding" peace operation one cannot avoid words such as "kill", "loot", "steal", "desecrate", "usurp", "missing persons", "refugees", "mas- sive expulsions", "illegal colonization" and so on. This is probably what has prompted delegations to take a very firm stand against Turkey. This is probably what has turned the report of the Commission of Human Rights of the Council of Europe into a "horrendous indictment" of Turkey. This is probably what renders the military operation by Turkey a shameful blot on the history of the twentieth century. 16. Of course the representative of Turkey, being a diligent and distinguished diplomat, had to try to offset the 1 Signed at Nicosia on 16 August 1960. For the text, flCC United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 382 (No. 5475), p. 4. 17. To give an answer to that question one has to go back to the days when Cyprus was a British colony. That was when the Turkish rulers in Ankara and their Turkish Cypriot agents in Cyprus fIrst masterminded the parWion of the country. Let us then follow the sequence of events. 18. First, in the mid-1950s, when Cyprus was still a colony, Turkey advocated the partitioning of Cyprus. 19. Secondly, in 1964 the leaders of the Turkish Cypriots, acting on directions from Ankara, forced a large part of the Turkish Cypriots to live in enclaves and thus separate themselves from the Greek Cypriots. I shall quote from two reports of the Secretary-General. The fIrst states: "... lack of movement by Turkish Cypriots outside of their areas is believed also to be dictated by a political purpose, namely, to reinforce the claim that the two main ' communities of Cyprus cannot live peacefully together in the island without some sort of geographical sep- aration."3 The second reads: "Indeed, since the Turkish·Cypriot leadership is com- mitted to physical_and geographical separation of the communities as a political goal, it is not likely to encourage activities by Turkish Cypriots which may be interpreted as demonstrating the merits of an alternative policy."4 20. Thirdly, on 5 June 1964 President Johnson of the United States wrote the following to Prime Minister Inonii of Turkey when the latter wanted to invade Cyprus: "The proposed intervention by Turkey would be for the purpose of effecting a form of partition of the island." 21. Fourthly, on 26· March 1965 the United Nations Mediator on Cyprus, Mr. Galo Plaza, wrote the following: "... [the representatives of the Turkish Cypriots] wished to be physically separated from the Greek community ... "Their proposal envisaged a compulsory exchange of population in order to bring about a state of affairs in 23. I turn now to the question of the intercommunal talks, whic~ has been th~ subject of undue exploitation by the other SIde. Turkey says we are intransigent, and some people approach us and say: "Why don't you talk with the Turks? They are good boys. Of course they have invaded and occupied your country. They have killed a few thousand people; they have raped your women, they have looted the whole place; they have destcrated your tem- ples-but why don't you negotiate with them?" And the Greek Cypriots sit back and reflect: "We are a small country, with no military power, with no massive troops and we have to negotiate. We have to negotiate, even th?ugh our people get up in the morning and see, a few miles away from the new places to which they have been transplanted by force, their birthplace under foreign mili· tary occupation. We are prepared to negotiate along the lines indicated by the international community, lines which emerge from United Nations resolutions, for a sovereign, independent and territorially integral Cyprus. But, for goodness sake, do not ask us to negotiate the partition of our country." - 24. That is the reason why we refuse to support the resumption of negotiations on the basis of the Turkish propo.sals of AprilI978.~ The provisions in those proposals contam none of the attnbutes of a federation; they do not propose the creation of a federal State. The clear aim of those proposals is .the creation of two separate States. Co~d anyone really argue that the Turkish proposals are credible and that they can -lead to a solution other than p~tition when, inter alia, they contain the following pomts. 25. They provide that sovereignty should be shared equally by the two national communities mrough their respective federated states. Can you imagine a federal State whose sovereignty is not allotted to the federal State itself? 26. They provide that the states will have international . responsibility and the right to enter separately into treaties with other countries. 27. There is no provision for federal defence and security, and there is only provision for the creation of separate 5 Ibid., Supplement for January, February and March 1965. document S/6253, paras. 72-73. 61bid., Thirty-third Year, Supplement for April, May and June 1978, dc~ument 8/12723, annex. 29. They provide that domestic and international respon- sibility in matters of human rights. and liberties will belong to the states and not to the federal Government. flexible". Let us start correctly, with the right proposals, the orthodox way. Let the Turks be just and inflexible rather than unjust and flexible. 30. They provide that passports will be issued separately by the states. 31. They provide for separate central banks for each state with almost no federal revenues or federal fmance, so that each state will be a separate eccnomic entity, with a separate system of taxation; this will eventually lead to the establishment of guarded borders between the two states. 38. Before concluding, I should like to reiterate once more our profound devotion to the ideals which form the supporting pHiars of the building in which we are now assembled. These ideals were extracted from the anguish, the humiliation, extinction of values and the shattering effects of the Second World War. Let us keep to these ideals, let us cherish and preserve them, and let us try to fmd the way to give practical dimensions to our resolutions and substance to whatever we consider just. 32. Lastly, they provide that postal and telecommunica- tion services will be the responsibility of the states and not of t...e federal Government. 33. There is really no sense in continuing, because the examples already given indicate very clearly that the objective of the aforementioned proposals is not the creation of a unified federal entity, not even of a Siamese entity, but rather the creation of twin entitie" .. 34. And then where is justice and majority rule when the Turkish proposals provide that the minority of 18 per cent shouM be equated with the majority of 82 per cent, so that, in other words, each Turk will have four and a half times more rights than each Greek? Or when the minority of 18 per cent wants, according to the same pioposals, 36 per cent of the land, which is twice as much as the laws of proportion dictate? 39. ,I wish to thank each Member State for its interest in Cyprus and for coming today to hear me describing the twentieth-century odyssey of my country and its people. 1 wish to thank the Secretary-General for his continuous and untiring efforts to find a solution to the problem. I wish to thank those countries which have sent military contingents to keep peace in Cyprus. But above all, I wish to thank those countries, which by their support and solidarity, have kept our morale and our spirit of resistance alive. 40. 'In Cyprus, 6,000 miles away from here, people must have gone back to their work by now. The IO-minute stoppage and meditation in honour of the Charter and its principles is over. They must now work for better days in Cyprus and for a better world. 35. Who is intransigent and unreasonable and who is not? The answer is not a matter of empty words; it is a question of substantiated argumentation.

I call on the repre: ~:ltative of Turkey, who wishes to speak in exercise of his right of -:eply. 36. Are we intransigent and unreasonable, we the victims of invasion and foreign occupation, with thousands of dead and missing persons, with our properties usurped and looted, who still propose a proportionally correct arrange- ment within the framework of a federal State? Or is the other side intransigent, the side which has invaded and occupied by force, which has looted, destroyed and killed, which defies United Nations resolutions and which pro- poses that the Turkish Cypriots should keep a multiple of what proportionally belongs to them in a country parti- tioned into two? I know that each representative deep in, his heart has the answer ~o that question.

i shall not attemp~ at this stage to reply to the false allegations and the distortions which you have just heard;.I shall have an opportunity to do so at a later stage in the course of this debate. But moce important, President Denkta§ will have the opportupjty in th~ Special Political Committee to expose the red truth about the problem of Cyprus. 43. At this stage I merely wish to state for the record that the representative who spoke before me has no right to speak for the whole of the people of Cyprus; he merely represents the Greek Cypriot community, and that i" all. 37. Despite the bitterness and the justified indignation of my fellow citizens, despite the fact that there are wounds and scars all over the country, I am authorized to state - The meeting rose at 11.45 a.m.