The Turkey-Iran terror nexus in occupied Cyprus shakes the status quo
Michael Rubin
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Among the world’s many frozen conflicts, the division of Cyprus may appear to Americans the sleepiest. After all, it has been nearly a half-century since Turkey invaded the island. If Turks say Greek ambitions to annex the island justified their first invasion, such logic fell apart a week later when the Greek military junta collapsed. That Turkey then invaded again, seizing an additional 30% of the island during peace talks, is an affront to good faith, diplomacy, and international law.
Still, Americans can be forgiven for forgetting Cyprus. The stakes appear low compared to South Korea, where 28,500 American troops are perhaps the only thing stopping renewed North Korean aggression and a war that could kill millions. They also pale in comparison to Nagorno-Karabakh, where Azerbaijani forces openly threaten to eradicate one of the world’s oldest Christian communities. Kashmir and Taiwan? Both conflicts could easily go nuclear. Russia and Ukraine? The fate of Europe seemingly hangs in the balance. Being a United Nations peacekeeper in Cyprus is among the cushiest jobs in the United Nations. There have been fewer than 20 deaths along the buffer zone since 1974, and none in the last quarter century.
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But it is time that Washington wakes up. Vacuums seldom attract forces of altruism. A botched Iranian terror plot shows how the Cyprus status quo is no longer tenable. On June 25, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Cypriot authorities for their role in stopping a terror plot directed against Israeli targets. Later that week, Israel’s normally taciturn Mossad spy agency acknowledged that it had abducted a terror cell leader inside Iran in order to disrupt the plot. The intelligence generated by that arrest revealed that Iran sought to use the Turkish-occupied zone in northern Cyprus to launch attacks against Israelis and Jews.
None of this should surprise. While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tells world leaders he is willing to trade Turkish accession to the European Union for lifting his veto on Sweden’s NATO membership, he presides over the only country occupying a European Union member. Turkey’s new foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has long links to Iranian intelligence. Intelligence service directors throughout the region privately describe Fidan’s pro-Iran sympathies.
Nor can the Turkish army occupying portions of Cyprus provide stability. Consider, for example, the statement of Erdogan’s chief coalition partner Devlet Bahceli, who, on July 4, declared, “Allah is one and his army is Turkish.” That Turkey has transformed an airport in the occupied zone into a drone base capable of threatening Israel, Greece, Egypt, and international shipping exiting the Suez Canal only ramps up the threat.
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Throughout the 1990s, Washington ignored Afghanistan as it transformed into a terrorist safe haven, and the result was thousands of American deaths in New York and Washington. Turkish-occupied Cyprus may not rise to the same level, but its status as a launch pad for Iranian terrorism into Europe is a threat neither the United States nor Europe can any more ignore.
It is time to end Cyprus’s occupation by all necessary means, even if it means sanctioning Turkey’s economy into temporary ruin. The West can no longer ignore Cyprus nor should it any more appease Turkey’s irredentism and imperialism. Sleepy conflicts atrophy security and then necrosis sets in. Turkey’s permissiveness to international terror means it’s time for the West’s wobbliness to end once and for all.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.