Turkey ordered to pay 90m euros over Cyprus invasion.

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Turkey must pay 90m euros (£73m; $123m) in damages over its 1974 invasion of Cyprus, according to a decision by the European Court of Human Rights.

The judgement is one of the largest ever ordered by the court.

It said the damages were compensation for losses endured during the invasion and in the subsequent partition.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded the north in response to a military coup on the island which was backed by the government of Greece.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27380388

[McCamy Taylor]

2. Um...this was before there was a European Union. So, if we are going retroactive, does

that mean that any person victimized by Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy can sue? I know a whole lot of people who probably still think they are owed some money. And Ireland still has a beef to settle with England over the 19th Century Famine. And what about the Armenian Genocide? Oh, and what about Jewish people whose ancestors were kicked out of England---when was that? 13th century? And lots of Native Americans are still pretty pissed at what the Inquisition did in the American Southwest. Where do we file our lawsuits?

[dipsydoodle]

3. The subject is linked to Turkey's application for EU membership.

In the absence of some kind of agreement Greece would veto that application.

Some other details of the history of Turkey and the original EEC going back to 1959 here :
http://diplomacy.bg/archives/934?lang=en

[Demeter]

4. A veto would be a good idea

That's all the EU needs...a fascist junta government mingling with the effete European Elite 1%.

It's been 40 years. If they wanted Turkey that badly, they should have booted Greece. Everybody would be better for it.

[freshwest]

7. Doesn't Turkey have a bad rep from further back? But then, they are still in NATO anyways...

[dipsydoodle]

8. On the subject of Cyprus earlier history here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus_dispute

Early 1960's most of my friends were Greek Cyps accompanied by one Turkish Cyp - I kept the peace on occasions. They / their families had all come the UK in the fifties and most had settled in north London. We were all at college together for a few years and hence I knew part of the history way back then.

The motives of the anachronism known as NATO differ.

[christx30]

5. Awesome.

Now we need to get china to pay compensation for the invasion of Tibet. And Russia for Eastern Europe.

[Zorro]

6. Since the Greek military junta instigated the Cyprus coup

which provoked the Turkish invasion, I think there's some Greek responsibility here.

[sofa king]

9. This ain't the way to open this can of worms.

Turkey has probably spent more than $123M keeping the press out of the Armenian mass-murder, so it's not as if they weren't going to be willing to pay--to keep it hush-hush.

What the Turks have never been willing to pay for is public relations damage, which is what they get by publicly mentioning the incident. So now that it is well on its way to being disastrous, the Turks will be less willing to pay and more willing to publicly confuse and contest the issue.