Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (27.10.15) reports that a survey held at occupied Yialousa village showed that the inhabitants do not want to abandon the area after a solution to the Cyprus problem is reached. According to the survey, which was held between 16 and 18 October 2015 by a researcher named Kudret Akay using the method of face-to-face interview with 766 persons, 93% of the inhabitants do not want to move from Yialousa.
Asked to what extent they believe that achieving the solution of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal Cyprus is possible, 53% of the participants in the survey replied negatively and 33% positively.
83% said that the house in which they live was built after 1974, 83% that they “own” the house and 48% that they live in a rented house. 67% stated that they own property in the government-controlled area of the Republic and 80% that they were given an “equivalent property” in the occupied area in return of the above-mentioned property.
47% of the respondents said that either they or their relatives of first degree had been forced to move from the places they had been living. They said that 39% come from occupied Bogazi, 29% from Alefka, 14% from Mansura, 8% from Seladi tou Api and 7% from occupied Kokkina.
86% of the participants in the survey said that they oppose to Karpasia peninsula, including Yialousa, becoming an area open for settlement for the Greek Cypriots after the solution of the Cyprus problem. 87% want the continuation of Turkey’s guarantees and 85% are in favour of the “Turkish army staying on the island in a strong manner”.
92% opposed to the return of Morfou to its legal owners for the sake of finding a solution and 96% said that they are against the return of villages in Karpasia peninsula to the Greek Cypriots.
73% of the respondents said that “the Greek Cypriots should definitely not be settled in the Turkish Cypriot area”, while 26% think that a limited number of Greek Cypriots could live in the Turkish Cypriot area.
51% of the participants in the survey said that they had voted “no” to the Annan plan and 84% noted that if the plan is submitted to a referendum with the form it had in 2004 they would vote “no”.
60% of the respondents stated that they are in favour of the rotating presidency in a federal Cyprus.
57% of the respondents described themselves as “Turkish Cypriots”, 26% as “Cypriots”, 8% as “Turks” and 7% as “Moslem Turks”.
50% said that their “country” is the “TRNC”, 29% that is Turkey and the “TRNC” and 18% that is the entire Cyprus.
60% of the participants in the survey responded that they see Turkey as their “motherland”, 20% as “guarantor power” and 7% as “brother and friendly country”.
54% see the Greek Cypriots as “historic enemies”, 29% as “neighbors” and 14% as “Cypriots speaking a different language”.
In statements to Kibris, Ozay Oykun, former mayor of occupied Yialousa, said that one of the reasons for which they had conducted the survey was the information published in the Greek Cypriot press that after the solution a “special status” will be given to Yialousa. The second reason, he noted, was the fact that the Greek Cypriot refugees from Karpasia had allegedly informed the Government of the Republic that they want to return to their occupied houses, even if they do not want to do so, as a result of pressure allegedly exerted on them by the Church.
Oykun said that 1,100 “voters” live in the village and that they have collected 750 signatures saying that they do not want to return to Kokkina, Mansura and Selai tou Api. He argued that in the UN reports it is noted that the inhabitants of Yialousa want to return to the villages which they abandoned, but this is not true. He claimed: “We do not want to leave Karpasia. We have taken roots here. We are living freely and we do not want for our tranquility to be spoiled”.
Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris Postasi newspaper (27.10.15) reports that the inhabitants of Yialousa have sent the results of the survey and a letter with their signatures saying that they do not want to leave Karpasia to the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci, the self-styled prime minister, the self-styled foreign minister, the so-called ambassador of Turkey to the occupied part of Nicosia, to the commander of the Turkish occupation forces, to the commander of the so-called security forces and to the Turkish Cypriot political parties.
Yialousa is occupied by military force. It is my home village. Its cemetery has been shamefully desecrated with all Crosses smashed, something only possible by concerted and official sanction, not the work of just one fanatic. Our Church MichailArchangelos has been looted, desecrated and turned into an empty shell and with animal muck. Is this civilised? why do illegal occupiers think they have the right to squat in our ancestral homes? They have absolutely no right to deny us Greek Cypriots our right to return to OUR homes!
Why does the world and pseudosocialists shout for Palestinian right to return and condone terrorism as “justified” yet the same hypocrites (really fascist) care nothing for peaceful non terrorist Greek Cypriots and deny US the right to return to our homes? Yialousa is OURS and will be ours one day! Every Cypriot, both Greek and Turk should be free to return to homes they lost. We can go to our homes and Turkish Cypriots to theirs. Wd must not deny each ither the right tomho back to homes we lost.
Federation is nothing but APARTHEID splitting CYPRUS on racial and religious lines : Greek Christian in south Turkish Muslim in north! We civilised people reject federation! Let Cyprus be a truly united NONfederated state where Greek and Turkish Cypriots can live together wherever they want. How on earth can we ever learn to trust each other if we live apart? as then we wont know about each other.
Colonist occupiers (for that is what many are) of Yialousa cannot and WILL NOT stop us true Yialousites from going back to our ancestral homes. If it is okay for Palestinians to return then why is jt not okay for us???!!!
Zuto i eleftheria ke irini!
If it had not been for the acts of terrorism carried out by Greek military backed EOKA and the resultant inter communal atrocities, then coup, Cyprus could now be a magical land with its people living peacefully, side by side. When religion and nationalism rear their ugly heads, division and horror is what happens. DNA testing has revealed that Greek and Turkish Cypriots are essentially the same people, which reminds me of visiting a restaurant in the Ottoman walled TC sector of Kyrenia a decade ago, run by a TC mother and daughter. When the mother, who lived through the troubles, had taken the kleftico from the oven, she performed a Cypriot traditional dance and then exclaimed, ‘Welcome to my home. This is not Greece and it is not Turkey. This is Cyprus’.