Turkish Cypriot journalists send message of peace for New Year

Turkish Cypriot journalists extended their wishes for the New Year to their Greek Cypriot colleagues on Thursday and called for cooperation for the promotion of peace.

In a letter titled ‘Let’s wrıte the ‘news of peace’ in 2017’ Sami Özuslu, the head of the Cyprus Turkish Journalists Association, expressed on behalf of the executive committee, the wish that the next year will be the one that “would bring peace to our country, to our region which has been turned into a fire-ball and to our world that has been in turmoil with wars and acts of terrorism”.

The group also pledged to continue its efforts to “write the news of peace” through dialogue, cooperation and rapprochement.

“For a sustainable peace in our country it is inevitable that both the Turkish Cypriot press and the Greek Cypriot press should need to become ‘parts of peace’ rather than ‘parts of the dispute’ as they have been up to now,” the group said.

It is of paramount importance, it said, that the press could and should continue its struggle against all kinds of discrimination, racism and hatred within universal ethical principles.

The group reiterated their proposal for the creation and establishment of a ‘common terminology’ with the active participation of Turkish and Greek Cypriot press organisations and academics.

“Taking this opportunity we wish that the year 2017, would bring health, success and serenity to our journalist colleagues and be the year that enable us to write ‘news of peace’”.

 

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.