A little history...

I stole the following from a website so I could fill everyone in on the Cyprus problem. I'm not sure how clear it is or how comprehensive, but it's kind of important. Nicosia is the last divided capital city in the world since the Berlin Wall fell. Half of the city is Greek and the other half belongs to the occupying Turks and their pseudo "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus." Too bad Turkey is the only country in the world that recognizes it as a country. Basically, it's illegal and not cool. The end.

(flag the Turks burned into the mountain)

Turkey invaded Cyprus on July 20, 1974. The international community strongly condemned the military invasion and rejected. The goal was the ethnic-cleansing, 17 years before the term was even coined, of the occupied northern part of the island.

When one reads the report, adopted on July 10, 1976, after months of investigation by the European Commission of Human Rights, one understands why thousands of Greek Cypriots fled their homes at the approach of the Turkish army. The Commission accepted that there were "very strong indications" of killings "committed on a substantial scale." The atrocities of the Turkish army included wholesale and repeated rapes of women of all ages, systematic torture, savage and humiliating treatment of hundreds of people, including children, women and pensioners during their detention by the Turkish forces, as well as looting and robbery on an extensive scale, by Turkish troops and Turkish Cypriots.

Thousands of Greek-Cypriots lost their lives, 1619 are still missing, 200,000 Cypriots fled their homes leaving behind their belongings (the 200,000 refugees in terms of percentage to the population of Cyprus correspond to 110,000,000 in the USA).

Currently, 26 years later, 30,000 Turkish troops are stationed on the occupied part of the island making it "one of the most highly militarized areas in the world", according to the June 1994 report of the UN Secretary General to the Security Council. The island is thus still divided, the refugees still away from their homes, the whereabouts of the missing still unknown. The Turkish-Cypriots are also victims of this invasion and imposed separation.

More than 110,000 Turkish settlers have been transported to the occupied areas, in an attempt to change the demographic character of the island. These settlers, while Turks, they are completely different culturally from the Turkish-Cypriots whose culture is very similar to their Greek counterparts.

The European Union has repeatedly stated that it recognizes the Government of the Republic of Cyprus as the sole legitimate government with jurisdiction over the whole territory of the island and its people.