The occupying power’s endless persecution complex

Opinion Cyprus problemEuropean Unionpoliticsturkey The occupying power’s endless persecution complex Ce B5 Ce Ba Ce Bb Ce Bf Ce B3 Ce Ad Cf 82 Ce A4 Ce Bf Cf 85 Cf 81 Ce Ba Ce Af Ce B1 Id 1713189 Relevant News The occupying power’s endless persecution complex 27 July 2026 Christodoulides and Holguín meet ahead of Guterres’s Cyprus visit 27 July 2026 Overnight pharmacies on Monday, July 27 27 July 2026 Phileleftheros Editorial 27 July 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber Turkey, the occupier, never stops complaining. It doesn’t do criticism. Every slight, real or imagined, gets pinned on someone else. Call it a persecution complex, if you’re feeling generous. Its latest gripe: the European Union’s assessment of Turkey. It didn’t much care for the European Council’s report either. Burhanettin Duran, the Turkish presidency’s communications chief, complained that the EU’s assessments “lack objectivity and any future-oriented strategic vision.” This from the spokesman of a country where democracy is in a full-body cast. A country with democratic deficits you could drive a tank through. We’ve all watched it happen: dissent gets crushed, and dissenters get locked up. On Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, the occupying power accuses the EU of parroting “one-sided rhetoric” that, in Ankara’s telling, reflects neither international law nor historical reality. So why exactly is Turkey complaining? Does it not occupy Republic of Cyprus territory? Has it not spent decades reshaping Cyprus demographically through the systematic import of settlers? Has it not refused, for 52 years running, to cooperate on solving the Cyprus problem? Is it not an authoritarian state that hunts down its political opponents, one by one? It doesn’t even spare elected officials. It jails them. It simply “dissolves” them. Any rival who looks capable of beating Erdogan at the ballot box ends up behind bars. The astonishing part isn’t that Turkey complains, some of that is just habit by now. It’s that, even while its officials are sitting down with Europeans, it keeps demanding full EU membership. How, exactly, is that supposed to work? Some bespoke, à la Turca route to accession? You cannot refuse to adapt to, or align with, the EU’s rulebook and expect membership to follow. Turkey can complain all it likes, but it knows the criticism isn’t baseless. What the EU points out, what other international bodies point out, is precisely what Turkish citizens live through every day. It’s what Turkey’s neighbours live through too. Ankara wants the lot. It’s grown bolder precisely because it’s been shown far too much patience. And now it lectures the rest of us on democracy and international law, this from a state that tramples both, systematically and brutally. That’s Turkey’s choice. Nobody else’s. Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Christodoulides and Holguín meet ahead of Guterres’s Cyprus visit Overnight pharmacies on Monday, July 27 Man denies guilt over March Larnaca hostage situation Larnaca acts over giant billboard near kindergarten Police probe Paphos Municipality hiring complaints under suspended Phedonos People mourn in Berlin after vehicle drives into CSD Pride event Stranded tourists evacuated from China’s famed Jiuzhaigou World Heritage site after mudslides, heavy rain Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.