Acting Paphos mayor defends renaming of Paphos’ Kemal Ataturk Street

Acting Paphos mayor Angelos Onisiforou on Tuesday defended his town council’s decision to rename the central Moutallos neighbourhood’s Kemal Ataturk Street, describing the move as “a choice imbued with symbolism and responsibility”. He said the choice to name the street Memory and Hope Street was chosen because “a place which respects itself does not erase its history”, but instead “remembers the wounds, the challenges and the people who lived before us”. “History should not hold us captive to the past. It ought to teach us and help us build a better tomorrow. We want this name to convey a clear message: peace, reconciliation, respect and peaceful coexistence,” he said. To this end, he insisted that “we do not seek to reopen old wounds or create new political or social conflicts”, and that “we do not wish to replace one form of division with another”, but that “instead, we are choosing to keep memory alive and hope open”. “True honour towards those who came before us lies not in perpetuating hostility. It lies in the strength to recognise our history, to learn from it, and to create a place where future generations can live in safety, dignity and mutual respect,” he said. He added that “‘memory’ reminds us of where we came from” and that “‘hope’ shows us where we want to go”, before saying that as such, “between the two lies our own responsibility not to forget, yet also not to let the past deprive us of our future”. Akel says ‘this is not the message Cyprus needs today’ Akel, however, criticised the move, saying that “at a time when the UN secretary-general is striving to resume negotiations and build trust between the two communities, some are choosing to raise an issue which fuels confrontation rather than fostering rapprochement”. “This is not the message Cyprus needs today. The government cannot simply hide. The Paphos municipality formally requested the government’s and the foreign ministry’s position. No response was forthcoming. The government chose to remain silent,” it said. It then said that among President Nikos Christodoulides’ 19 new points for discussion on the Cyprus problem was “a proposal to display the names of towns and villages in the occupied areas in Greek”. While the use of Greek in official signage was almost entirely abolished by the Turkish Cypriot authorities after 1974, some local authorities, including in Nicosia and Kyrenia, have begun in recent years to put Greek place names written in the Latin alphabet on signage. Akel said that while Disy “declares itself a supporter of rapprochement and of a solution based on a bizonal, bicommunal federation”, it was Disy councillor Nina Gkaraklidou who tabled the initial proposal for the street’s name to be changed. “Political stances are judged by actions, not merely by declarations. Disy must explain how this specific choice serves the cause of rapprochement and the fostering of a climate of trust – goals the party itself claims to pursue,” it said. Moutallos had been home to Paphos’ Turkish Cypriot community Prior to 1974, Moutallos had historically been the home of Paphos’ Turkish Cypriot community, and the names of the streets in the neighbourhood reflect that fact. However, since then, with the neighbourhood becoming the home of displaced Greek Cypriots, and the wider Paphos area experiencing an influx of Pontic Greeks, moves have been made to rename some streets bearing names deemed offensive by those communities. Talat Pasha Street was renamed as Justice Street in 2021, with Paphos’ Pontic Greek and Armenian communities pointing out that the late Ottoman grand vizier had been convicted and sentenced to death for organising massacres of Greeks and Armenians during his stint as grand vizier and, earlier, interior minister. Distaste at Mustafa Kemal Ataturk among Pontic Greeks, such as Gkaraklidou, is sourced from the Greco-Turkish war, during which both sides committed sundry atrocities against one another, including massacres, torturing and the burning of towns and villages. However, Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel, himself a Paphos native, had said that the plan “clearly reveals the true face of the Greek Cypriot side’s mentality”. He said the planned renaming of the street serves to “completely destroy trust between the communities” and “serve conflict, not peace, and enmity, not friendship”.