"OCCUPIED TERRITORIES": WHAT ABOUT CYPRUS, KASHMIR, TIBET?

"OCCUPIED TERRITORIES": WHAT ABOUT CYPRUS, KASHMIR, TIBET?

by Douglas Murray

 

The EU is supporting divesting from Israeli companies that operate in the West Bank, lever mind the fact that a Senior PA official opposed this, stating: "It's not just Israeli companies that are going to be hit economically, it's also going to be disastrous economically and socially for the Palestinian community."  However, one must also ask this: What about Cyprus? What about the other nations in the World with Border Disputes? There is at least one major one on China's borders [Tibet]. And there is the rather famous one which borders Pakistan [Kashmir]. Border disputes are hardly unusual, the unresolved dispute involving Morocco over the status of the Western Sahara is yet another example. Yet all these countries have full, if not fawning, diplomatic and trade relations with the EU.

What makes the EU's latest double-standard even more blatant is that the occupied island of Cyprus is a member of the EU! As such, shouldn't it surely command the most detailed and persistent attention from the international body?  Yet this is not so. The northern part of Cyprus has been illegally annexed for the last four decades by Turkey. It is not as though Turkey shares a border with the island. Nor does it have — as Israel has with the West Bank — any legitimate historical, political or other territorial claims on the northern part of the island. There is no security reason for Turkey to sustain its occupation, as there is an obvious need for Israel to have defensible borders that do not permit terrorists from the West Bank to fire rockets into Israel, like their terrorist companions do in post-disengagement Gaza or southern Lebanon. Yet Turkey faces little, if any international pressure to end their occupation and withdraw from Northern Cyprus.

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