Press Releases

Dear friends,

This photo exhibition vividly illustrates the drama our country experienced on 20 July 1974 when Turkey invaded Cyprus, occupying 37% of our territory and forcibly expelling 200,000 Greek Cypriots from their homes, who have since become refugees in their own country.

For 48 years now we see Turkey colonizing our occupied areas, with the massive transfer of Turks from Turkey.

Today, the Republic of Cyprus is faced with a new threat: A worse and more dangerous Attila, with the systematic channeling of irregular migrants to the government-controlled areas of Cyprus through the green line.

Following the colonization of our occupied areas, this instrumentalization of the migration issue by Turkey aims at altering the demographic profile and population balance of the government-controlled areas as well. It constitutes a hybrid threat against both Cyprus and the European Union and we, therefore, call upon all of you to support our efforts in addressing this phenomenon.

This small but comprehensive collection of photos from the Photographic Archive of the Press and Information Office illustrates exactly that.

The Press and Information staff, whom I warmly thank for their excellent work, were able to join the dots of the imaginary line connecting the big sore of Cyprus, the Turkish invasion, with the contemporary wound of the migration issue.

(EF/EK/IK)