“July 20 is the day we overcame the darkness and the light began to appear,” said Ersin Tatar, president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). “July 20 is the day our people will rise from the ashes,” he said.
TRNC President Ersin Tatar visited the TRNC as part of the 50th anniversary of the Cyprus Peace Operation, which was carried out with Turkey as a guarantor on July 20, 1974, shortly after the Greek-backed coup in Cyprus. He spoke at an official parade held on Fazli Küçük Boulevard. Tatar began his speech by greeting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the delegations of Turkish and Azerbaijani parliaments, all guests and the entire nation.
President Tatar said, “We are happy and delighted to be able to enthusiastically celebrate the 50th anniversary of the peace operation on July 20, 1974, when the Turkish Cypriot people gained their freedom.” The Greek Cypriot leadership expelled the Turkish Cypriots by force from the 1960 Republic of Cyprus, trying to make this Republic a springboard to Enosis. The Greeks, who brutally carried out the Akritas Plan, a plan to annihilate the Turkish Cypriots, along with Bloody Christmas on December 21, 1963, burned and destroyed 103 villages and forced the people to emigrate from their homeland. Our loyal and devoted people, despite living in migrant tents for 11 years under the most difficult conditions, driven to hunger and poverty, did not bow their heads, did not become slaves, did not fight with their heads held high and violated the honor and dignity of the Turkish people. High. Thanks to the status quo established 60 years ago by UN Security Council Resolution 186 of March 4, 1964, the Greek leadership is still unjustly, illegally and unfortunately accepted as the sole government of the island. The conflict and massacres that began with the Bloody Christmas attacks in 1963 continued until 1974 in various parts of Cyprus, including Erenkoy and Geçitkale. Martyrs of Erenkoy Our national poet Suleyman Ulucamgir expressed the common struggle of Anatolian and Turkish Cypriot Turkish peoples in these lines: “Say this when we are dying, some of us are dying. ” “I take this opportunity to commemorate the martyred poet Ulucamgir with compassion and gratitude,” he said.
