We must not drop our defence

Sir,

I agree to a certain extent with Simon Salaras (Letters, January 29) that separation may be an answer to solving the Cyprus problem. However, two separate states is not the only possible solution.

Whatever happens, I think total demilitarisation, which virtually all our politicians in Cyprus are in favour of, is a very dangerous option because even if all the Turkish troops leave Cyprus, Turkey is only a few miles from Cyprus and in the event of some future conflict we will have no chance to save even a few lives if we have no National Guard. 

Just because Cyprus is a member of the EU, it doesn’t mean that the various European countries are going to send their troops to protect us. There is no properly organised European army yet, and even if there was, it would be foolish to rely on them. Never rely on foreigners to look after your interests. I thought we would have learnt that lesson by now, having seen how much the EU countries loved us when we decided to reject the Annan plan.

I believe that a solution which is similar to the relationship between England and Scotland – two two geographically separate communities within one country – is a good model. Scotland has its own parliament and yet is still part of the UK. The only difference being is that for the Turkish side to agree on us keeping our army, we will have to let the Turkish Cypriots have their own national guard or Turkey to have a limited amount of troops in Cyprus. So it will be like the UK model, except that it will as if England and Scotland had their own army.

There could be provisions in the solution so that one day in the future if both communities got on really well and felt one Cypriot identity there could be only one army with both Greek and Turkish Cypriots in it.

In Iraq in the new solution, the Kurds are allowed to have their own army, but they are still part of Iraq.

Cyprus is in a volatile part of the world and any solution which leaves us without the right to defend ourselves is naive and foolish. Today, Turkey is the enemy, tomorrow it could be someone else in the region. Who knows what the future will bring? We must never leave anything open to chance.

D. Pavlou, Liverpool

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