“The existence of two Peoples, two Democracies and two States in Cyprus are well documented in the archives”
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President Ersin Tatar has held a meeting with Prof. Dr. Uğur Ünal, Director of State Archives Directorate of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye and Ayhan Tuğlu, Head of the Presidential National Library of the Republic of Türkiye.
The meeting was also attended by Private Secretary Çağın Zort, Special Advisor to the President Gökhan Güler and Mustafa Haşim Altan, Founding Director of the National Archives and Research Department.
President Tatar, who described the “national archives as being the memory of the country,” pointed to the “historical richness in having a well-documented archive that provides important information” with regards to the “the challenges and opportunities that existed in the past, the struggle of the Turkish Cypriot People to the history of what happened on the Island of Cyprus”.
“It is important to teach and pass on the information from our archives to our children and to future generations,” President Tatar said. “Compared to the past, there are more academicians and officials who are benefitting from the archives that is helping them advance in their respective careers, and more financial resources attributed to improving and developing our national archive”.
Stating that the Ottoman Empire also has archives in Cyprus, President Tatar stated that it is “important to preserve these documents well, to transfer them to digital media and to facilitate their accessibility for the benefit of humanity”.
President Tatar, who stated that “the existence of two Peoples, two Democracies and two States in Cyprus are well documented in the archives,” added: “There is an attempt by some to create the illusion that the Greek Cypriots are the sole sovereign people of the Island of Cyprus. However, there are documents in the archives that can be presented in showing that on the contrary, there are two separate Peoples with inherent equal rights, two democracies and two States in Cyprus”.
He said the archives provide the documented basis for the existence of the State and the Turkish Cypriot People who have inherent rights. “It is also enshrined in the founding treaties of the partnership republic that there are two separate Peoples, each with their own language, religion, history and expectations.
The Turkish Cypriot People were expulsed from the state apparatus of this republic by force of arms despite being one of the equal co-founders. We have been effectively governing ourselves as a State since 1963 and have waged an epic struggle to co-exist in peace, whilst the Greek Cypriot Side aspired to unite Cyprus with Greece and even declared the ‘Hellenic Republic of Cyprus’ in July 1974. It is documented that Archbishop Makarios delivered an address at the UN Security Council in that period, where he openly declared that Greece has invaded Cyprus.”
President Tatar said that the support of Türkiye is important in continuing to develop and upgrade the archives.
Prof. Dr. Uğur Ünal, Director of State Archives Directorate of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, stated that the “Republic of Türkiye is among the top three countries in the world in the numbers and quality of documents and information of its archives. The Republic of Türkiye has more than 100 million documents and 1 million book records in the Ottoman archives alone”.