One more longest day

ezik degil izmirliymisim

Düzenli olarak gelen izmirli olmak maillerinden birine bakarken şu satır gözüme çarptı;

.....
yolda biriyle çarpışınca diğerinin hatası olmasına rağmen refleks olarak gülümseyip özür diliyorsanız
.....
falan filan
....

izmirlisiniz

İstiklal' de kalabalık arasında yürümeye çalışırken üstüme çıkan insan evlatlarına dönüp pardon deyince aldığım "ezik misin adam sana çarptı niye özür diliyosun" tepkilerinin cevabı buymuş

Division of an island: Cyprus

I looked at some reader comments on the issue in
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6215410.stm

Some people say the divion of the island is the consequences of the turkish occupation of northern part and the blamed one should be Turkey. But why Turkey decided to take this hard decision in 1974, which caused so many problems for decades in all its international relations incuding ongoing EU negotiations? What about suffering, massacres and bloodshed from both sides between 1960 -1974? What about the coup d'etat supported by Greek nationalist and EOKA, whose aim was to unify the island with Greece and clean the turkish territory on the island or in the best case give them a second class citizenship? Should Turkey wait and watch all those things as a legal guarantor state of the Republic of Cyprus, a state with two communities, which gained its independence in 1960? Please be rational..

A reader said:
"And all this under the pretext of protecting the interests of a 14% Turkish minority!"
K D Verrichio

So their interest should not be taken into consideration because they are the "minority". The problem is lying exactly there, Greeks or Greek Cypriots want to see the Turkish Cypriots as the second class citizens of the island and since Greeks are in majority they have the right to do everything they want. If this would be the mentality how can we think of a re-unification of Cyprus.

Nicolas Sarkozy two views

"France's President Chirac and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have both said Turkey will have to recognise the Armenian deaths as genocide before it joins the EU - though this is not the official EU position."

bbcNews 12 Oktober 2006

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has been on an official visit to France’s former colony Algeria. On Monday Sarkozy placed a wreath at a monument for Algerians killed in their war for independence and on Tuesday he visited a monastery in Tibhirine where seven French monks where killed in 1996.

In only eight years, 1.5 million Algerians died during their country’s fight for independence between 1954 and 1962. Torture was widespread.

The Algerian government has urged France to apologize for the killings and suffering during 130 years of colonial rule.

And said : Sons don't Apologize for Their Fathers' Mistakes

JTW News 21 November 2006