Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has endorsed a two state solution for Cyprus which would effectively legitimize the Turkish aggression and ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories. In the mindset of this typical Englishman recognition of the occupied territories would settle the problem. Never mind the Republic of Cyprus and the interests of the Greek Cypriots.

The ex Foreign Secretary presumes that the Greeks on Cyprus are privileged because the Republic of Cyprus remains internationally recognized while the Turkish occupation is not. The typical racist mentality is at work in Straw who does not see the ethnic cleansing of over 200,000 Greek Cypriots and the massacres that were perpetrated by Turkish forces in 1974.

The British have never recognized their crimes against humanity that began in 1955 when George Grivas and the heroes of EOKA began the struggle for the freedom of Cyprus by seeking to achieve union with Greece. It should be remembered that Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived peacefully together at the time. It was the British who invited Turkey to make a claim on Cyprus, and together with Ankara armed the Turkish Cypriots who attacked the Greek Cypriots. The Greek Cypriots were fighting against the British, not the Turkish Cypriots.

The British have left behind misery and misfortune wherever their former Empire reigned. The Middle East is a perfect example. The British had promised Palestine to both the Jews and the Arabs during the First World War. The British left behind misery in India and what later became Pakistan.

The British should have no base in Cyprus. Cyprus should address the issue of the British base. The British legacy in Cyprus is one of evil and misery. Both Greece and Cyprus should ensure that the British will not be permitted to take part in any negotiations that have to do with the future of Cyprus.

Finally, the British are not alone in their hatred of the Greeks. The Germans continue to arm Turkey as Ankara threatens Greece. The traditional blindness that Greeks have had toward Europe has contributed to the present problems that both Athens and Nicosia face. The West is no friend to Greece and Greeks everywhere must accept this reality.

Aside from the British military presence in Cyprus, Nicosia needs to address the unscrupulous English thieves who have settled in the occupied territories of Cyprus over the years and who reside in the homes of Greeks who were forced to flee from their homes. Both Greece and Cyprus should be sending a warning to the British of diplomatic consequences in the event of any recognition of the occupied territories whatsoever.

The Biden administration has broken the President’s campaign promise to maintain an embargo on Azerbaijan. The United States is resuming sending military aid to Baku even after that country’s war of aggression against the Armenians of Artsakh. The recognition of the Armenian Genocide which initially was something to be applauded has been completely undermined as Azerbaijan is going to be receiving American aid.

This indicates that Biden was never serious about changing policies toward Turkey. Once again, the American foreign policy establishment has the upper hand. Azerbaijan is a Turkic Republic with genocidal ambitions and has the unconditional backing of Turkey. The threat to Armenia has increased.

Furthermore, the threat to Greece has also increased. Support for Azerbaijan equals support for Turkey. Biden is proving to be one more Democrat making promises to the Greeks and the Armenians that he does not keep.

President Joseph Biden has wished the Orthodox world happy Easter. This is reminiscent of President Bill Clinton’s wishing the Orthodox a Happy Easter in 1999 while bombing Serbia on Orthodox Easter. The Clinton administration subsequently forced Serbia to withdraw from Kosovo where the most holy Churches and Monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church are located.

Today, President Biden wishes us a happy Easter while the canonical Church of Ukraine is being fiercely persecuted and Churches are being seized by Neo-Nazi extremists and given over to the schismatic entity masquerading as a Church. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is planning a visit to Ukraine where he plans to meet the fake Bishop that leads the fake Church. He apparently plans to talk against alleged Russian aggression.

American officials are talking out of both sides of their mouths. Their intervention in the affairs of the Churches of Constantinople and Greece has estranged both of these Churches from universal Orthodoxy. Shamelessly, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has celebrated Biden’s wishes.

The restoration of peace and unity within the Orthodox Church can only come under the following conditions. First, the American government must cease interfering in internal Church matters. Unfortunately, this appears to be a big hurdle to overcome. That is why the universal Orthodox Church is going to need to address the American problem at some time. It is widely known that American officials have caused the schism and surprisingly the local Orthodox Churches have not protested this blatant intervention in Church affairs.

Secondly, Patriarch Bartholomew will either have to completely reverse himself on the Ukrainian matter and his pretensions to authority over the whole of Orthodoxy or be deposed. The latter option will be the most likely one the longer this crisis drags on. It seems unlikely that disciplinary action can be taken against Patriarch Bartholomew as long as the American problem is not addressed.

The most promising road to the recovery of Orthodox unity comes from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem convened a council in Amman, Jordan in February 2020. He has recommended that a similar gathering be convened when it becomes possible for Orthodox primates to meet again.

For the time being it appears the Church schism will not be resolved. President Biden has previously taken a position favoring recognition of the Ukrainian pseudo-church. Those comments were completely out of order as Church matters are none of his concern.

Meanwhile, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese with whom the President has a relationship with does not correct him on his mistakes. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, and by extension the Ecumenical Patriarchate has forfeited any claim to leadership considering they have chosen to rely on secular non Orthodox authorities to pursue their claims of authority over the Orthodox world.

Greeks should remember that Turkey continues to remain intransigent on Cyprus and intends to maintain the occupation of the island Republic. President Biden has done nothing to punish Turkey or to take action to restore the sovereignty of Cyprus. Nor has he proceeded to stop Turkish aggression against Greece. What a friend.

As Secretary of State Blinken precedes to meet with the Ukrainian pseudo bishops it is abundantly clear that the American foreign policy apparatus supports Constantinople only to pursue its anti Russian foreign policy. When the time comes, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese will find themselves friendless in Washington and the Patriarchate will fend for itself in a hostile Turkey as it has for the past century.

It will do so without support from the Orthodox world which Constantinople has alienated.

Turkish Cypriot “leader” Ersin Tatar has rejected any deal on Cyprus that is not based on the occupied territories becoming a state. This is not surprising considering that Turkey has always demanded the partition of Cyprus. Mr. Tatar himself is not a real leader, but the representative of the Turkish government in Cyprus.

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres says he does not intend to give up. The Secretary General may be well intended but the fact is that Turkey and its puppet regime in the North of Cyprus have always refused to comply with United Nations Resolutions demanding the withdrawal of all Turkish troops and settlers. The problem has been that neither the United Nations nor any Government in the world has ever forced Turkey to comply with the Treaties of 1960 which established the Republic of Cyprus.

There really cannot be a change until there is a real commitment to forcing Turkey to comply with international law. In 1991, the first Bush administration went to war to force Iraq from Kuwait. The Clinton administration bombed Serbia during the 1990’s to force Belgrade to comply with western demands. Other cases could be cited in which the international community has been willing to force certain countries to comply with their demands.

It is not necessary to declare war on Turkey in order to liberate Cyprus. But there have to be means to punish Turkey for sustaining the occupation of Cyprus. Sanctions would be a legitimate start. Other measures intent on isolating Turkey could be imposed gradually.

There is no willingness to force Turkey to comply with international law and the norms of civilization. This has been the case since the formation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Therefore, the United Nations and the powerful governments of the world are responsible for sustaining the Turkish occupation.

Cyprus must find means to liberate itself from the Turkish occupation. It certainly cannot depend on the so called civilized world. With the passing of time, it will become more difficult to reverse the occupation of Cyprus. This is what Turkey has been aiming for.

Both Cyprus and Greece need to demand from the United Nations that sanctions be imposed on Turkey. Ankara makes the decisions regarding occupied Cyprus. Cyprus should have ceased negotiating with officials of the Turkish occupation back in the days when Rauf Denktash served as Ankara’s man in the occupied territories.

Ersin Tatar says that is pointless to continue negotiating. In this, he is entirely correct but not in the way that he means. The Cypriots suffer a loss of dignity by sitting down with the representative of the Turkish Government who disguises himself as the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community. Cyprus should cease meeting with him and his associates and should isolate them much as Cyprus has worked to isolate the recognition of the occupied territories.

The Republic of Cyprus should demand from the United Nations that there must be no more contact with the occupied territories. They could then suggest that sanctions or penalties be enacted against Turkey. Perhaps the UN response will not be a positive one but at the very minimum what does Cyprus have to lose by hardening its position and refusing to meet with Turkey’s lackeys who have no intention of negotiating seriously?

It is time for an evaluation of the situation in Cyprus. There must be more effective ways for Cypriot leaders to work for the liberation of Cyprus than sitting down in useless negotiations with the occupiers. Nicosia should also consider the possibility of raising war crimes that were perpetrated by Turkish forces in Cyprus in 1974. They can ask interpol and the United Nations to actively pursue the murders who murdered Cypriot protesters Tasos Isaac and Solomos Solomou during the summer of 1996.

They should change their emphasis from useless negotiations to less ambitious but more aggressive goals in seeking to punish Turkey for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Cyprus should push the human rights angle among international organizations and governments more aggressively.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has begun the process of groveling before Turkish dictator Erdogan. In the aftermath of the Biden administration’s formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Blinken has stated that Biden does not blame Turkey for the Ottoman perpetrated genocide. The reality is that the Ottomans alone are not responsible for Genocide.

The Genocide of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians began under the Ottomans but were completed in 1923 after the rise to power of the murderous Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic. To suggest that modern Turkey in not complicit in Genocide is absolutely false and is demonstrative that the American foreign policy establishment is shamelessly groveling at the foot of the Turks.

Mustafa Kemal’s army systematically exterminated all Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians in territories that came under its control. This is historical fact. It is also true that Kemalist Generals such as the notorious Noureddin Pasha were responsible for the indiscriminate slaughter of civilian populatins. It was Noureddin Pasha who presided over the burning and destruction of the City of Smyrna. It was Noureddin Pasha who handed over Greek Archbishop Chrysostom to the Turkish mobs to be butchered.

Even after the war ended, Kemal presided over the mass ethnic cleansing of well over one million ethnic Greeks from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace. Previous to this, panic had struck the Christian populations of Constantinople when it was still under the control of the Great Powers. The Christians within the city had become aware of the slaughter at Smyrna and at least 300,000 or so Greeks fled Constantinople in the belief a repetition of the slaughter at Smyrna would occur within the City.

During the Second World War, the Turkish Government imposed harsh taxes on Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. When members of these communities could not pay they were deported into the interior of Anatolia from which they never returned. In September 1955, the Turkish Government organized the pogroms against the Greek population of Constantinople and within a decade most Greeks had been ethnically cleansed.

In 1974, came the Turkish invasions and ethnic cleansing of Cyprus. Between 1984 and 1999, the Turkish military destroyed over 3,000 Kurdish villages in a dirty war against the Kurds. To suggest that modern Turkey is not guilty of Genocide is inaccurate and highly offensive. The Turkish Republic was born in Genocide.

Under the Erdogan regime, Turkey supported the Islamic State. The Islamic State perpetrated Genocide against Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’ite Muslims. Turkey aligns itself with the perpetrators of Genocide.

The Secretary of State is an utterly contemptible individual as are all State Department officials attempting to whitewash Turkey’s history of Genocide. This puts the Biden recognition in an entirely different light. Regrettably, what should have been a real achievement and a hope for progress in holding Turkey accountable for its long list of crimes against humanity has been cheapened by a foreign policy establishment bending over backwards to appease the murderous Turkish Republic.

In the future, all efforts in obtaining recognition of the Genocides perpetrated by Turkey against Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks should make it clear that the Turkish Republic is as much responsible for the extermination of Christians as the Ottoman Empire was.

President Joe Biden has done a good thing and it is important to give him credit. Under Joe Biden, the White House has finally recognized the Armenian Genocide. Too many Presidents from both parties lacked the courage and integrity to refer to the Genocide.

Joe Biden did the right thing and he deserves praise and commendation for doing so. The Turks murdered one and a half million Armenians (and two million more Greeks and Assyrians) during the First World War. In actuality, the Genocide of all these Christians originated in 1894 according to the historians Benny Morris and Dror Ze’ev, authors of the outstanding “The Thirty Year Genocide”.

Turkey up to the present remains a murderous and bloodthirsty state. Let us hope that Joe Biden’s courageous recognition of the Armenian Genocide leads to a change in foreign policy that will serve not only as the basis of his administrations foreign policy, but as the permanent policy of administrations that will follow his.

It is about time. This is a significant victory. Congratulations once more to Joe Biden for doing the right thing and to the Armenian American community who worked hard to achieve this recognition.