Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on Thursday warned against people becoming “trapped by history” as he responded to statements made by President Nikos Christodoulides the previous day on the anniversary of the creation of Eoka.
“Knowing history is very important. Having historical awareness and learning from past events is equally important. But that is one thing, and being trapped by history and thinking, suggesting, and predicting that children and future generations should also be trapped there is quite another,” he said.
He added that people should “know history and learn from it”, but asked, “will we constantly look back, or … will we be able to look forward?”.
“These thoughts crossed my mind while reading the statements and comments made in the south on April 1,” he said.
The comment comes after Christodoulides had said that informing future generations about Eoka is essential, and linked it to efforts to solve the Cyprus problem.
“Achieving our goals requires knowledge of our true history,” he said, before adding that this knowledge “does not in any way act against a possible solution”.
Instead, he said, the viability of any settlement depends “to a large extent on the recognition of historical truth and certainly not on self-negation”, before saying that his insistence on teaching the history of Eoka to future generations is also “a message to our Turkish Cypriot compatriots, to Turkey, and to Great Britain”.
Eoka is typically referred to as a terrorist organisation by Turkish Cypriots and as freedom fighters by Greek Cypriots.
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