Turkish Cypriots

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Turkish Cypriots are those inhabitants of Cyprus who are ethnically Turkish, as opposed to those who are of Greek (the Greek Cypriots) or other ethnicities. Within Northern Cyprus the term is sometimes used to refer explicitly to indigenous Cypriots as opposed to Anatolian Turkish migrants who have settled there in the past two decades.

There are more than 447,000Template:Fact Turkish Cypriots in the world. In Cyprus, they estimate their number to be about 171,000 in mid-1990, about 40,000 higher than estimates of the Republic of Cyprus. Difference may stem in part from the Turks who settled on the island after 1974. There has been no de facto census since 1960. [1] There are approx. 200,000 Turkish Cypriots in the United Kingdom, 50,000 in Australia, 10,000 in North America, 2,000 in South Cyprus and 5,000 spread across other countries. Number of Turkish Cypriots in Turkey is unclear; one Turkish Cypriot source [2] suggests 500,000 but this information is unverified.

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History

With the Ottoman conquest, the ethnic and cultural composition of Cyprus changed drastically. Although the island had been ruled by Venetians, its population was Greek. Turkish rule brought an influx of settlers speaking a different language and entertaining other cultural traditions and beliefs. In accordance with the decree of Sultan Selim II, some 5,720 households left Turkey from the Karaman, çel, Konya, Alanya, Antalya, and Aydin regions of Anatolia and migrated to Cyprus. The Turkish migrants were largely farmers, but some earned their livelihoods as shoemakers, tailors, weavers, cooks, masons, tanners, jewelers, miners, and workers in other trades. In addition, some 12,000 soldiers, 4,000 cavalrymen, and 20,000 former soldiers and their families stayed in Cyprus.

The Ottoman Empire allowed its non-Muslim ethnic communities (or millets) a degree of autonomy if they paid their taxes and were obedient subjects. The millet system permitted Greek Cypriots to remain in their villages and maintain their traditional institutions. The Turkish immigrants often lived by themselves in new settlements, but many lived in the same villages as Greek Cypriots. For the next four centuries, the two communities lived side by side throughout the island. Despite this physical proximity, each ethnic community had its own culture and there was little intermingling. Both communities, for example, considered interethnic marriage taboo, although it did sometimes occur.

Until the island came under British administration in 1878, there were only rough estimates of Cyprus's population and its ethnic breakdown. In more recent times, population figures became highly controversial after it was agreed that the government established in 1960 was to be staffed at a 70-to-30 ratio of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, although the latter made up only 18 percent of the island's population. For this reason, the population figures were a vital issue in the island's government, likely to affect any far-reaching political settlements in the 1990s.

About 40,000 to 60,000 Turks lived on Cyprus in the late sixteenth century, according to Ottoman migration figures. In the eighteenth century, the British consul in Syria believed that the Turkish population on the island outnumbered the Greek population by a ratio of two to one. According to his estimates, the Greek Cypriots numbered 20,000 and the Turkish population around 60,000. Most historians do not accept his estimate, however. If there was a Turkish majority, it did not last. By the time of the first British census of the island in 1881, Greek Cypriots numbered 140,000 and Turkish Cypriots 42,638. One reason suggested for the small number of Turkish Cypriots was that many of them sold their property and migrated to mainland Turkey when the island was placed under British administration.

There was a significant Turkish Cypriot exodus from the island between 1950 and 1974 when thousands left the island, mainly for Britain and Australia. The migration had two phases. The first lasted from 1950 to 1960, when Turkish Cypriots benefited from liberal British immigration policies as the island gained its independence, and many Turkish Cypriots settled in London, escaping the civil unrest on the island.

The few years leading to 1974 the number of Turkish Cypriots on the island remained mainly constant. The number of Turkish Cypriots in 1974 was 118,000.

On July 15 1974, EOKA-B took power in Cyprus with a military coup backed by the Greek junta; Turkey used this as a pretext for intervention to secure the welfare of Turkish Cypriot population and subsequently occupied the north of the island. In this process, there have been expulsion of populations from both Greek and Turkish sides. According to Turkish-Cypriot newspapers, over one third of Turkish Cypriots emigrated from the occupied area between 1974-1995 because of the economic and social deprivation, mainly a result of the ongoing international embargo on the TRNC. On the contrary, some Turkish settlers from Anatolia moved to the island, whose number reached around 115.000 (2001 figures), which is in fact a violation to the Geneva Conventions Protocol of 1977 since the Turkish occupation has been declared illegal by the UN. As a result the Turkish Cypriots who remain are today outnumbered by the Turkish security forces together with the settlers.

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Famous Turkish Cypriots

chronological order of birthdates


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External links

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Bibliographical orientation

  • Baybars, Taner, Plucked in a far-off land, London: Victor Gollancz, 1970.
  • Beckingham, C. F., The Cypriot Turks, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, vol. 43, pp. 126-30, 1956.
  • Beckingham, C. F., The Turks of Cyprus, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. vol 87(II), pp. 165-74. July-Dec. 1957.
  • Beckingham, C. F., Islam and Turkish nationalism in Cyprus, Die Welt des Islam, NS, Vol 5, 65-83, 1957.
  • Committee on Turkish Affairs, An investigation into matters concerning and affecting the Turkish community in Cyprus: Interim report, Nicosia: Government Printing Office, 1949.
  • Oakley, Robin, The Turkish peoples of Cyprus, in Margaret Bainbridge, ed, The Turkic peoples of the world. (pp. 85-117), New York: Kegan Paul, 1993de:Zypern-Türken

tr:Kıbrıs Türkleri

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