Letters to the Editor
Turkey and Cyprus Mehmet All Panzer The Long Bow Slavomir Rawicz The PEN Congress Cecil Roberts The Casement Papers Rene MacColl A Poet of the Counter-Reformation John Little 'In Praise of the Fascists' • Desmond Stewart The Poet and Radio Paul Casimir Stage Designing Jonathan Goodman
TURKEY AND CYPRUS
SIR,—S0 much of Mr. Randolph Churchill's article in your issue of July 13 was devoted to a violent and, if I may say so, unedifying attack upon his betters, that attention may have been distracted from the fallacies in his main argu- ment. This attempted to show that Turkey has imposed a veto on British policy and (by im- plication) that her government displayed a lack of 'adult-mindedness' in opposing self-deter- mination for Cyprus. But surely it is truer to say that pro-enosists in Britain are anxious to grant a veto to the Greek extremists, and both might be likened to the child who said : 'But, mummy, I'm not pulling pussy's tail. I'm only holding. She's pulling.'
Turkey, however unreasonably, is not pre- pared to have her tail held by Greece. In other words, although she does not fear attack by Greece, she will not have a country which is openly hostile to her, and which might at any time revert to a policy of 'equal friendship with East and West,' astride all her main lines of communication. Nor will she agree to any proposal which might, or could, lead to the enslavement of Turks in Cyprus.
These are the fact's. And no amount of criticism of British or Turkish statesmen will alter them. But they do not constitute a Turkish veto on British policy; if anything, it is Britain and Greece who jointly hold a veto over Turkish policy.
Turkey favours the preservation of the status quo, under which all in Cyprus have prospered and Turkey herself has felt secure to follow her 'National Policy' of internal development. She would far rather continue undisturbed with this policy, and only the most urgent demands of self-defence would make her do otherwise.
This is the basic position which, it seems to me, Mr. Randolph Churchill's personal attacks have tended to obscure. Yet it is of the utmost importance that the world should understand it.
Turkey, having no territorial ambitions beyond her borders, will not easily be goaded into a foreign adventure; but should her national security be threatened, she will take immediate and decisive counter-measures. If this is clearly understood, we may yet find a just and workable solution to the Cyprus prob- lem. Any other approach to it can only lead to stagnation and profitless mud-slinging.—Yours
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