Cyprus and the famous UN Annan Referendum in 2004 was one of my favorite personal stories that included the EU, Washington, and Turkey. The Eastern Med University and my movement worked together very well, and we did simulations of every possible scenario regarding the vote from Greek Cyprus and Turkish Cyprus. I was able to be involved in Cyprus through the most senior and influential people there, including the late Rauf Denktas and his son Serdar Denktas. Moreover, I would make frequent trips to Cyprus and constantly be on their main tv channels regarding the referendum. My American colleagues and decision makers were all telling me that their intelligence was telling them that Greek Cyprus would vote yes, and the Turks would vote no. Of course, Washington was already deep into Iraq and no weapons of mass destruction were to be found during these days and everyone was on edge and panicking on every issue beyond Iraq. I told them that it would be just the opposite and the Turks would vote yes and Greeks no. This was going to be a pivotal period in Turkish/Greek history that was splintered to this day. Finally an opportunity to put everything behind as much as possible. Washington DC naturally was not even paying attention and did not even care about this issue.
When I would visit offices of decision makers the arrogance was do deep: is your issue Iraq or Iraq or Iraq. If not we don’t care simple as that. Having grown up during Nixon admin and Watergare I knew DC was dead in the water for a very long time. This was worse than Watergate so it had to be covered up as much as possible. Until Republicans understand this fact and accept this fact Republicans will never be able to function again. Gerald Ford saved the party by pardoning Nixon. Obama saved Bush by prosecuting no one. Guantanamo was never shut down to this day, and is a pain in everyone’s rear. Nobody talks about Guantanamo because nothing is ever done to fix it. Trump is the only person who can close Guantanamo if he makes it back to the White House. How Obama was there for eight very long years doing nothing is still beyond my political comprehension. Every promise was broken. OBL saved him. Biden advised strongly don’t to it. We will all lose together if OBL is not in Pakistan. Good advice from Biden camp in 2012.
Everyone should understand why Obama did not want Biden in 2016/2020/2024. Democrats have been dysfunctional today everything is imploding due to Joe Biden. In Democrat world Jimmy Carter is their ‘worst president’ for historical purposes for obvious reasons. Reagon came with a landslide 49 states due to Carter. In What is America/1 on Biden 100th day, I wrote he and his laughing mate Kamala would be the worst President and VP in history. Even Republican friends in DC said I was wrong. They actually wanted Biden to perform well so Trump would not return. Instead of trying to decipher what is wrong w/ America – I wrote 100 edited pages I could have written 1000 easily – my editors said I was being too strong in my language editing me way down in my opinion. Trump simply can’t win California because not enough Republican are registered anymore. Democrat machine in California destroyed everything possible except George Cloony who I wrote in article one. Every other state including New Yrok should be in play especially after the DEBATE and assassination attempt brought on by the Democrats’ machine.
Where should I start.. Biden compared Trump to Hitler. Said MAGA voters are all basically traitors to America and if he wins.. the world will CEASE to exist because Trump will turn into Hitler on day one.. I can’t watch political TV anymore so I don’t see Democrat commercials at all. I can’t watch Biden talk on TV. I can’t watch Kamala babble on TV. Something tells they must have Trump and HITLER same commercial. This is how low DC has fallen. IF SO get rid of these commercials. Schumer Democrat Majority man said to Trump’s Supreme Court members – at the steps of CAPITOL – we are watching you as Democrats – he basically threatened all 3 in different ways. On the way to SC all three were destroyed by the Democrat machine. If anything bad happened.. Trump almost lost his life. I really wonder what Schumer thinks now about Trump and what he said on the steps about SC.. Now Kamala Harris may actually become President of USA. I wrote clearly in What is Wrong w/America worst thing possible. The world order or whatever is left will effectively be history. China/Russia/Iran/ all US haters will take over the entire world by 2028. Nothing will remain she is already a laughing stock for everyone around the world. Naturally why in the world would anyone in Democrat Party care about this.. When this election is there for the stealing.. their machine just like AI is trained to steal minds and votes.. just dump whatever possible wherever possible– any voters anywhere – that will save them from disaster. 10 million walked thru in 3 years. obody will be accountable anyway unless Trump starts throwing responsible people in prison.
I remember a very long and intriguing afternoon discussion with Rauf Denktas in his home when he told me everything that happened during those years and said there was no way he would personally support the referendum. I replied that young people like Serdar and others deserve a little more from their lives in Cyprus when you consider how famous Turkey, and its beautiful coast and beaches are – why not Cyprus be a part of this? It was Serdar Denktas's political party in the referendum that was going to support the referendum, which made it easily in the positive column. The Americans did not trust Rauf Denktas and assumed his son would follow his father's line in the vote which is usually done in situations like this. I arranged for Serdar Denktas to have a conference call with Secretary of State Collin Powell through senior State Department officials. State Dept undersecretary Mark Grossman, who I knew from Turkey ambassadorship, arranged this with my coordination. Serdar informed Powell that he was going to influence his party – which used to belong to his father – to support the referendum. When the big day came, the Greeks voted no, whereas Turks voted yes.
It was truly a historic day; the Greeks looked like total fools on the world stage, and Turkey was the king of the Eastern Mediterranean. I took President Mehmet Ali Talat to the European Parliament and arranged for his speech in Parliament during this time. The Greeks and others threatened me, saying Talat was not an official and he could not be presented in the European as a world official and I could not call him Cypriot President. I did everything that the Greeks and others told me not to do and I very happily introducing him as President Talat of North Cyprus, and everyone went crazy and started verbally abusing me. This was all very fun and highly satisfying, but I had no idea that the Europeans would first drop the ball. And then Washington would also drop the ball because their credibility went to hell over Iraq. Washington’s credibility will never return.
In 2005, the ten Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria and Romania, were admitted, which was really hard to swallow. After the 2004 Referendum, there should have been some awards for Turkey and rewards especially for Turkish Cypriots, but none were given. The E.U. was terrified of Turkey and the thought of membership, so they just played dumb and let time pass and everything lost its momentum and influencing powers. Again, here Washington was critical because they simply did not care about Cyprus and the E.U. negotiations and how this positively affected Turkey. I remember Condoleezza Rice came to Turkey in 2007 and was asking everyone why Turkey hated America so much and how the favorable public opinion from Clinton 1999 visit, which surpassed 80 percent was decimated with distrust and hatred. These were all things that I was trying to explain in Washington, but nobody listened, and nobody cared. ?????????????????
I was the one on the ground going around the country hundreds of times over talking to the people in every corner of the country and having people place their trust in me and telling me their life ambitions and objectives plus dreams. I went to places like Konya almost twenty times, and this one of the places where we were most vital with the most appeal from the youth. Konya is one of the critical cities where our vision and missions were so welcome that in 1997, they hosted me with a packed convention center of over four hundred people who were all local businessmen and the next day every Konya local paper – ten in total – had me on the headlines praising my speech for political reform and mindset change of the old political guard. For people who understand Turkish politics, Konya is even more important than Kayseri. In Erzincan, again very critical part of Turkish Anatolian political base, they interviewed me for four hours on a nightly news broadcast where everyone from Erzincan was calling in and asking me questions on the air. This was shown many times that week after we left Erzincan. It was the nightly news, and I was supposed be on for just ten minutes. Elderly women stopped on the streets the next day saying they saw the interview and wanted to have their young family members join my movement. A group of passionate Turkish young wolves of the nationalist movement in Erzincan spent the night with us in the mountains and we talked politics all night long. In the morning, they said they were part of our movement and were ready to organize all their young wolves’ groups throughout central and eastern Turkey, who had no decent party or political leader to follow. All they needed was a message from me to move ahead. That message never came. Had I decided to go all in the MHP youth everywhere in Turkey who I met on all of my Anatolian trips would have been a part of ARI. Devlet Bahceli knew of this potential which is why as Dep. PM 2002 – he invited me to his office. In politics and networking I never ever asked for anything. It just happened as I created things and I went step by step. To this day I do not ask anyone for anything. Meral Aksener was the coordinator of my relationship with Mr. Bahceli. She came to all of our events reported everything to MHP headquarters.