GREEK village and town names could stand alongside their Turkish equivalents on road signs in the north, if a proposal put forward by a top Turkish Cypriot academic receives backing from the Turkish Cypriot authorities, it was revealed yesterday.
The proposal, the brainchild of Dr Mehmet Hasguler, a lecturer at a number of universities in Turkey and north Cyprus, has already received support from several high-ranking officials within Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and the tentative backing of a number of Turkish Cypriot academics and politicians.
“Whoever I’ve discussed the idea with, either in Turkey or Cyprus, has said it would be a positive move,” Hasguler told the Sunday Mail yesterday.
Hundreds of village names in the north were changed following the 1974 Turkish invasion as part of a policy of “Turkification” – a move viewed by many as an attempt to wipe out traces of Greek Cypriot culture in that part of the island.
Hasguler, however, believes the policy has “backfired” on the Turkish Cypriot community, and that the sooner old names are restored the better.
He believes that accepting the old names alongside the new Turkish ones on road signs would not negate the existence of a centuries-old Turkish culture on the island, but would in fact make people realise that Turks had been on the island for centuries.
“Changing of town and village names after 1974 gave the impression that Turks first arrived on the island then, rather than 400 years before in 1571,” he said.
“It was a short-sighted policy that has acted to fuel the idea that the north is under military occupation,” Hasguler added.
Hasguler says many village and town names are neither Greek nor Turkish, and signify a common history of Greeks and Turks on the island.
“The village of Livadia in the Karpas has a counterpart in the Van region of Turkey, so why does it need to be given a different Turkish name?” he asks.
The same argument, he said, applied to the village of Galatia, a village that was predominantly Turkish-populated before 1974.
“Why rename it Mehmetcik when there is a Galatia in Anatolia, and especially when the name is closely associated with the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk?”
Historical arguments aside, Hasguler believes that implementing his proposal in the north could go a long way to boosting reconciliation between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. It should also not be seen as the abandonment of the Turkish Cypriot community’s efforts to claim a common homeland on the island.
“This would not constitute a concession, because it would be good for the Turkish Cypriot side too,” Hasguler said, arguing that it would demonstrate the north’s willingness to embrace and be part of the whole history of Cyprus.
“We have nothing to lose by doing this, but a lot to gain,” he said, adding that the move should go ahead even without a solution to the island’s decades-old divide.
The academic’s idea was not rejected outright yesterday by an official from the body responsible for road signs in the north. Undersecretary for the north’s ‘communications and works ministry’ Sener Cagnan told the Mail, “Personally, I think it’s a great idea that would do a lot for peace. But it is a decision that will need to be taken at a political level”. He added the warning, however, that there had been vocal opposition from nationalist elements when some road signs were erected giving the English names of a number of towns.
“Are we ready for this? I’m not really sure,” he said.
