LEFKOSA - President Rauf Denktas of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) said on Sunday that everybody should have the conscious to protect state not to experience massacres of the past and not to have martyrs again.
Denktas, who delivered a speech in commemoration ceremony held for Inonu Martyrs massacred by Greek Cypriots in 1958, pointed out that there could not be an agreement before having a state, stressing that this should be announced to the whole world.
Pointing out that the world wanted an agreement to be signed which would remain on paper, Denktas said Turkey's guarantee would be temporary with an agreement that would be signed in this way. He said Turkish soldiers would depart from the island when Turkey entered the European Union (EU), stating they opposed to this.
Denktas said there could not be an agreement again which would remain on paper like it had happened in 1960, stating that, ''basis of a new agreement had been assessed with agreements made with the Greek Cypriots in 1975, 1977, 1979. The two peoples would live in two sections, and they will have their own administrations.''
Denktas said settlement of Greek Cypriots to the North and their gaining property should be according to the laws of the North to provide security of Turkish Cypriots. He said Annan plan did not include those.
Denktas said martyrs of the past and those who are in mass graves could not be forgotten, stating that, ''if Turkish Cypriots had been a state in 1960's, those would not happen to them. If we were given the right to be state in 1963, Cyprus question would have been solved in a few months.''
(AY-BRC) 13.07.2003