Packed house hears rogue professor

By Martin Hellicar

A FORMER Turkish army captain made famous by his public claims to have witnessed horrific atrocities committed against Greek Cypriots during the Turkish invasion arrived on the island yesterday.

Professor Yalcin Kucuk came among much media fanfare to deliver a lecture to a packed audience at the Cyprus University yesterday evening.

In his hour-long talk, Kucuk made no fresh claims of atrocities. But in television interviews earlier this year, he described Turkish soldiers taking part in the invasion murdering a Down’s Syndrome civilian in cold blood.

Kucuk concentrated instead on attacking Turkey’s policy on Cyprus and the Kurds and condemning Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash as the “butcher of Cyprus” – drawing warm applause form the audience.

He said he was an unwilling participant in the invasion and warned Greek Cypriots to be wary of Turkey’s “expansionist” policies.

“I was shocked, when I was in the second phase of the invasion, when we entered Asha and everybody was very serene, having breakfast… they didn’t believe Turkish forces would come there.”

Kucuk said he was ending his self-imposed exile in Paris and returning to Turkey even though he said he faced certain imprisonment there for “speaking out”.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.