Turkish Cypriots
Turkish Cypriots are those inhabitants of
Cyprus who are ethnically
Turkish, as opposed to those who are of
Greek (the
Greek Cypriots) or other ethnicities. Within
Northern Cyprus the term is sometimes used to refer explicitly to indigenous Cypriots as opposed to
Anatolian
Turkish migrants who have
settled there in the past three decades.
There are more than 447,000 Turkish Cypriots in the world. A census took place in the
TRNC at the end of
April 2006 the results of this census which are disputed by the
Republic of Cyprus have said that the population of
Northern Cyprus was 264,172[
1]. There has been no de facto census since 1960. [
2] There are approx. 200,000 Turkish Cypriots in the
United Kingdom, 50,000 in
Australia, 10,000 in
North America, 2,000 in the
Republic of Cyprus and 5,000 spread across other countries. Number of Turkish Cypriots in
Turkey is unclear; one Turkish Cypriot source [
3] suggests 500,000 but this information is unverified.
With the Ottoman conquest, the ethnic and cultural composition of
Cyprus changed drastically. Although the island had been ruled by
Venetians, its population was
Greek. Turkish rule brought an influx of settlers speaking a different language and entertaining other cultural traditions and beliefs. In accordance with the decree of Sultan
Selim II, some 5,720 households left Turkey from the Karaman, Içel, Konya, Alanya, Antalya, and Aydin regions of
Anatolia and migrated to Cyprus. The Turkish migrants were largely farmers, but some earned their livelihoods as shoemakers, tailors, weavers, cooks, masons, tanners, jewelers, miners, and workers in other trades. In addition, some 12,000 soldiers, 4,000 cavalrymen, and 20,000 former soldiers and their families stayed in Cyprus.
The
Ottoman Empire allowed its non-Muslim ethnic communities (or
millets) a degree of autonomy if they paid their taxes and were obedient subjects. The millet system permitted
Greek Cypriots to remain in their villages and maintain their traditional institutions. The Turkish immigrants often lived by themselves in new settlements, but many lived in the same villages as Greek Cypriots. For the next four centuries, the two communities lived side by side throughout the island. Despite this physical proximity, each ethnic community had its own culture and there was little intermingling. Both communities, for example, considered interethnic marriage taboo, although it did sometimes occur.
Until the island came under
British administration in
1878, there were only rough estimates of Cyprus's population and its ethnic breakdown. In more recent times, population figures became highly controversial after it was agreed that the government established in 1960 was to be staffed at a 70-to-30 ratio of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, although the latter made up only 18 percent of the island's population. For this reason, the population figures were a vital issue in the island's government, likely to affect any far-reaching political settlements in the 1990s.
About 40,000 to 60,000 Turks lived on Cyprus in the late sixteenth century, according to Ottoman migration figures. In the eighteenth century, the British
consul in
Syria believed that the Turkish population on the island outnumbered the Greek population by a ratio of two to one. According to his estimates, the Greek Cypriots numbered 20,000 and the Turkish population around 60,000. Most historians do not accept his estimate, however. If there was a Turkish majority, it did not last. By the time of the first British
census of the island in
1881, Greek Cypriots numbered 140,000 and Turkish Cypriots 42,638. One reason suggested for the small number of Turkish Cypriots was that many of them sold their property and migrated to mainland Turkey when the island was placed under British administration.
There was a significant Turkish Cypriot exodus from the island between 1950 and 1974 when thousands left the island, mainly for
Britain and
Australia. The migration had two phases. The first lasted from 1950 to 1960, when Turkish Cypriots benefited from liberal British immigration policies as the island gained its independence, and many Turkish Cypriots settled in
London, escaping the civil unrest on the island.
The few years leading to 1974 the number of Turkish Cypriots on the island remained mainly constant. The number of Turkish Cypriots in 1974 was 118,000.
On
July 15 1974,
EOKA-B took power in Cyprus with a military coup backed by the Greek junta; Turkey used this as a pretext for intervention to secure the welfare of Turkish Cypriot population and subsequently occupied the north of the island. In this process, there have been expulsion of populations from both Greek and Turkish sides. According to Turkish-Cypriot newspapers, over one third of Turkish Cypriots emigrated from the occupied area between 1974-1995 because of the economic and social deprivation, mainly a result of the ongoing international embargo on the
TRNC. On the contrary, some Turkish settlers from Anatolia moved to the island, whose number reached around 115.000 (2001 figures), which is in fact a violation to the
Geneva Conventions Protocol of 1977 since the Turkish occupation has been declared illegal by the UN. As a result the Turkish Cypriots who remain are today outnumbered by the Turkish security forces together with the settlers.
chronological order of birthdates*
Kıbrıslı Mehmet Emin Pasha - 3-times
Ottoman grand vizier in mid-
19th century*
Kıbrıslı Mehmed Kamil Pasha- 5-times Ottoman grand-vizier in late-19th and early-
20th century*
Alparslan Türkeş - leading Turkish politician
*
Fazıl Küçük - leading politician during the period of the
Republic of Cyprus*
Mehmet Nazım Adil -
Sufi religious leader
*
Rauf Denktaş - founder of
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus*
Asil Nadir - international businessman of the
seventies and
eighties*
Mehmet Ali Talat - President of the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus*
Mustafa Halilsoy - prominent physicist in the field of Physics of Gravitational Waves
*
Ulus Baker - sociologist
*
Fatima Whitbread - javeline thrower
*
Sümer Erek - painter
*
Acar Akalın - guitarist/composer
*
Tracey Emin - one of the
Young British Artists*
Hüseyin Çakmak - cartoonist/journalist
*
Hüseyin Çağlayan - top fashion designer
*
Okan Ersan - guitarist
*
Muzzy Izzet - football player
*
Ziynet Sali - singer
*
Metin Huseyin - film director
*
Alp Haydar - british actor
* Baybars, Taner, Plucked in a far-off land, London: Victor Gollancz, 1970.
* Beckingham, C. F.,
The Cypriot Turks, Journal of the
Royal Central Asian Society, vol. 43, pp. 126-30, 1956.
* Beckingham, C. F.,
The Turks of Cyprus, Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. vol 87(II), pp. 165-74. July-Dec. 1957.
* Beckingham, C. F.,
Islam and Turkish nationalism in Cyprus,
Die Welt des Islam, NS, Vol 5, 65-83, 1957.
* Committee on Turkish Affairs, An investigation into matters concerning and affecting the Turkish community in Cyprus: Interim report, Nicosia: Government Printing Office, 1949.
* Oakley, Robin,
The Turkish peoples of Cyprus, in Margaret Bainbridge, ed, The Turkic peoples of the world. (pp. 85-117), New York: Kegan Paul, 1993
*
Oral histories of Turkish Cypriots in Britain
