I had read and heard about the division of Cyprus for years, but such knowledge cannot prepare a person for the emotional impact of seeing the magnitude of the human tragedy firsthand. Walking through the streets of the capital, Nicosia, one sees the ugly scar of the "green line" -- the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separates the portion of the city controlled by the Cypriot government from the territory occupied by the Turkish army. It winds its way serpentine-like through the city and its suburbs -- a low-tech Mediterranean version of the Berlin Wall. We may have thought that such ugliness ended with the fall of the Soviet empire, but in Cyprus it is very much a part of the landscape.
Journey to the east coast resort city of Famagusta and it's possible to witness even greater ugliness. Indeed, one should say the former city of Famagusta. Once inhabited by about 40,000 permanent residents plus tens of thousands of tourists who flocked to one of the best resorts in the Mediterranean, it is now a ghost city. There is something truly eerie about looking across a vista of grass crisscrossed by barbed wire and UN patrols to see row upon row of houses and high-rise hotels in the distance and hear no sound coming from what should be a vibrant metropolis. This is the way the ghost city has remained since Turkey's invasion and occupation in 1974. The former residents insist they will be able to return to their homes someday, but it is getting hard for them to maintain that belief after 27 years.
It would be tempting to dismiss the Cyprus problem as one of many nasty disputes around the world that are of little or no relevance to the US. This case is a little different, though, because the US's hands are not clean.
There is evidence that the US government not only looked the other way when NATO ally Turkey invaded Cyprus and occupied the northern 37 percent of the country but may have encouraged Ankara to do so. Since that time, Washington's criticism of its ally has been perfunctory at best. Indeed, what little criticism there has been is always overshadowed by fawning proclamations about how Turkey is such a loyal US ally and how it is so indispensable to the advancement of US interests in the region.
The US cannot attempt to rectify every injustice in the world. But it does have an obligation not to be an accomplice in the theft of other people's property and the suppression of other people's liberty. With regard to the Cyprus issue, Washington has crossed over that important line.
The US and its NATO allies insist that the alliance is an organization of peaceful democracies. Yet one member of that alliance continues to occupy the territory of its neighbor with more than 30,000 troops. In the course of its invasion and occupation, it ethnically cleansed more than 170,000 inhabitants and refuses to this day to let them return to their homes despite rulings on the subject by the European Court. It established a puppet regime in the occupied territory -- a regime that has so little legitimacy that it is recognized by no other country in the world.
Nearly three years ago, NATO bombed Yugoslavia for attempting to engage in ethnic cleansing. It is not too much to ask that the US and the other NATO powers hold a fellow alliance member to the standards that they demand of other countries.
Yet Washington continues to treat Turkey as a valued, indeed treasured, ally -- an attitude that has grown even stronger with the start of the war against terrorism. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last January, Secretary of State Colin Powell fairly gushed about how important Turkey is to the US and how reliable a friend it has been. The reality is that Ankara has simply pursued its own agenda that, thus far at least, has usually overlapped with Washington's objectives.
Even if Turkey has been a useful US ally, that does not relieve the US government of the moral obligation to condemn its ally's aggression. No one is suggesting that the US bomb Ankara and Istanbul because of the occupation of Cyprus. But Washington's diplomatic position should be clear: Turkey is an aggressor and its actions should make anything other than an arm's length relationship with the US utterly inappropriate.
It is important for Washington to take such a moral stand, and the importance goes far beyond the impact on US-Turkish relations. Other countries are periodically tempted to use force to settle territorial disputes or other grievances. China, for example, has repeatedly toyed with using coercion to settle matters with Taiwan. Washington has set a very bad precedent in looking the other way while Turkey enjoys the fruits of its conquest in Cyprus. By strongly condemning Turkey's aggression, the US would discourage China or other countries that might be tempted to emulate Ankara's example. Thus, a moral stand by Washington would make at least a modest contribution to a more peaceful world.
Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
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