Greek Cypriots upset about nomenclature

Greek Cypriots have been upset by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s use of the term “north Cyprus” to describe the area not under the effective control of the government of the Republic of Cyprus.

Government Spokesman George Lillikas said “Her reference to ‘north Cyprus’ is surely an inappropriate term. For the government of Cyprus there are ‘Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus’. The term used by the European Union in some of its documents regarding the acquis communautaire is ‘areas not controlled by the Republic of Cyprus’ but which still belong to the Republic of Cyprus.”

Northern Cyprus has taken on many names since the Turkish invasion of 1974.

In the Act of Accession of Cyprus to the EU, it is called “areas not under effective control of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus”.

Since 1983, it has been called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) by Turkish Cypriots and by Turkey, but is not recognised as a state by any country except Turkey.

Terms used by Greek Cypriot officials and most of the media include the occupied areas, the Turkish-occupied areas, the illegal pseudo-state or the illegally occupied areas. Meanwhile, the Turkish Cypriot administration is known as the pseudo government, the so-called government, the illegal pseudo regime of the occupying power and so on.

In response, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot authorities call the areas that are under effective control of the government of the Republic of Cyprus simply “South Cyprus”, since Turkey does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus.

Those trying to tread a neutral line use “north”, “in the north”, “the north”, “northern Cyprus”, “south”, “in the south”, or sometimes “the other side” but carefully avoiding anything that sounds like the Turkish term “South Cyprus”.

However, it seems that when a normally neutral term comes out of the mouth of a senior US official, it is seen as what some could call ‘a cynical attempt by the foreign powers to promote their friends by a political upgrading of the illegal pseudo occupied regime’.