Dr. Hasibe Sahoglu, a lecturer from the Department of International Relations from the Faculty of Politics and the TRNC’s first female Ambassador, made a statement about the History of Cyprus on the TRNC’s 36th anniversary of establishment.

 

Dr. Hasibe Sahoglu stated that in 1963 the Greeks wanted a 13 claus constitutional amendment and in that time, the Turkish Vice President wanted to remove the veto rights.

 

Ms. Sahogle said this in the rest of her statement;

 

“In that time only Nicosia’s Municipality was separate. At the London-Zürich Agreements, it was registered that all the municipalities would be separate. Back then the share of power started to annoy the Greeks. They were looking at the Turks as a minority and they didn’t want to give political equality. In 1983 the Greek Cypriot side started to disregard us (the Turks) by attempting to become a member of the European Union and were sort of accepted. This incident caused a startle on the Turkish Cypriot side. After these difficulties, as Turks, we decided to establish the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and to continue our relations in this direction. On November 15, 1983, when the founding President, Rauf Denktaş, and the delegation accompanying him declared the Republic, the Turks experienced a great sense of excitement. It is an incredible pride to say the establishment of a state.”

 

According to the statement made by Ms. Sahoglu about the Greek and Turkish side uniting again, she said;

 

“The two states living on an island will surely have relations, but do not intend to establish a partnership with the Greek side again; We need to continue negotiations as two separate states and find solutions to our own internal problems. We have a lot of problems that we need to find solutions for in many areas such as health, education and public sector.”

 

 

Ms. Sahoglu mentioned The History of Cyprus should be given as a compulsory lesson for all students studying at the TRNC Universities, and stated;

 

“In the old days, poems, anthems, historical knowledge and national feelings were increased. However, recently the information is nationalistic, far from raising citizens. The primary and high schools in the TRNC have the History of Cyprus course. The History of Cyprus should not just be given to the students at primary and high school, it should also be given to the Cypriot, Turkish and Foreign students studying at the universities in Cyprus, just like the course the History of Turkish Revolution. As the Faculty of Politics of the Girne American University, we have accomplished this by putting two separate Cyprus History courses given by two separate lecturers and all our foreign students are taking this course.”