During Turkish Prime Minister ErdoganοΏ½s business trip to Australia it would be proper that he be reminded that οΏ½

• Turkey continues to occupy 38% of Cyprus, an independent Commonwealth nation in blatant disregard of UN Resolutions.  In the occupied territory Turkey has ethnically cleansed the majority Greek Cypriot population and has settled colonists from Turkey.  Over 80 Christian churches have been converted into mosques or damaged and rare religious and archaeological treasures have been pillaged or sold.

• According to the latest U.S. State Department Human Rights Report there is a οΏ½systematic campaign against ChristiansοΏ½ in Turkey.  Amongst other violations it refuses to re-open the Halki Theological College which was forcibly closed in 1971.  This is the foremost Orthodox seminary in the world.  It refuses to acknowledge the ecumenical nature of the Orthodox Patriarchate (which existed 1,100 years before the Turks captured Istanbul) and has confiscated Church property which is heritage listed by UNESCO.

• It refuses to recognize the genocides committed against its Christian populations (Armenian, Pontian and Assyrian) at the beginning of the 20^th Century and to formally apologise for the pogrom of September 1955 against the Greek population which has, as a result, been reduced from 150,000 to less than 3,000.

• To allow its Kurdish minority which makes up 20% of the population, to exercise its civil and human rights. (Most of Kurdistan is under martial law, Kurdish M.P.οΏ½s are not allowed to take their place in Parliament and the Kurdish language is banned).

 AustraliaοΏ½s image as a champion of human rights should not be tarnished for the sake of improving trade.

Costa Vertzayias

7 December, 2005