Cypriot homes, Turkish domicide

This is just a short post (for the moment at least) and will serve to explain if I'm away for a few days, hopefully investigating the Turkish army's domicide of Greek Cypriot homes. Early yesterday morning, I found an article on the destruction of Greek Cypriot houses in northern Cyprus by the Turkish army (unreferenced but from the 7th of July edition of the Cyprus Mail) on Topix (where the comments very rapidly deteriorated in both relevance and quality); so far, as far as I know, the news has only been reproduced without comment elsewhere.

AROUND 80 Greek Cypriot houses have been demolished in occupied Karpasia and another 27 are in danger of being bulldozed, the chairman of the Karpasia Coordinating Committee Nicos Falas said yesterday.

Karpasia (also spelled Karpas, Karpass and Karpaz) is the north-eastern peninsula on Cyprus, the "pan-handle" of the island. Without any more specific information, it may be difficult to find the Cypriot homes falling victim to the Turkish army's domicide, but hopefully my Greek and Turkish will prove good enough and the destruction notorious enough to allow me to find them.

Falas was speaking after a meeting with British High Commissioner Peter Millet, where he asked for the intervention of the international community to save the remaining houses.

He said there was also a danger that demolitions would begin in the village of Ayia Triada, also in the Karpasia area.

I may visit Ayia Triada and work backwards.

Falas said that Millet told him he had spoken to Rasit Pertev, a senior aide to Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat about the demolitions. "The High Commissioner was very positive and clear in his statements," said Falas. "He told us he had already informed the ambassadors of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and that he had made contact with Rasit Pertev."

Millet would also be meeting soon with Talat, Falas said. "We hope there will be some results that will put an end to this destruction," he said. However he said from what he understands, the demolitions were being carried out by the Turkish army and not the Turkish Cypriot administration.

"We do not believe this is the work of the Turkish Cypriot authorities," said Falas.

My colleagues and I cannot, however, think why the Turkish army is choosing to destroy these or any other Cypriot homes now. There's a vile logic to their domicide in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey, but there is no immediately visible tactical benefit here, now.

I would be curious to learn if this could be tied to the Turkish army's apparently revised practice of having Kurdish conscripts do their service in south-eastern Turkey (as opposed to northern Cyprus, where they were sent until recently), which would correlate with having the highly nationalistic Turkish conscripts who used to be sent to south-eastern Turkey being sent to northern Cyprus instead.

Cyprus Mail. 2007: "Greek Cypriot houses destroyed in Karpasia". Cyprus Mail, 7th July. Available at: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=33452&archive=1