Association members offer to serve in Turkey’s Olive Branch operation
MORE than 50 Turkish Cypriots have offered to serve in the Turkish army as part of the country’s Olive Branch military operation in Afrin, northern Syria.
Latif Akça, the chairman of the Association for Preserving the Ideas of Rauf Raif Denktaş, told Cyprus Today on Wednesday that he had submitted an application with the names of 50 volunteers to the army recruitment headquarters (Asal Şube) in Lefkoşa.
“We did this to show our utmost solidarity and deep connection with motherland Turkey,” Mr Akça said.
“We have voluntarily come forward and have asked to be sent to Afrin to take part in the ongoing operation against terrorism. The volunteers are aged between 18 and 50, with both men and women applying. Mr Akça said that he and other volunteers were “angry” at “attempts by certain publications aimed at dividing Turkish Cypriots from Turkey, which they do in the name of ‘peace and democracy’.”
He was referring to a controversial headline that appeared on the front page of the Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika on Sunday, which described both Turkey’s 1974 military intervention in Cyprus and its offensive in Syria as an “occupation”.
“Even if we are not assigned to the front line, we want to be there and to help the Turkish army, who saved us Turkish Cypriots from massacres and prevented Enosis [union of Cyprus with Greece] in 1974,” Mr Akça added. “Our sincere love for Turkey has been shown by this action.”