I refer to the letter Turkey's action in Cyprus against int'l law by Michael Anastasiadis in which he attempts to dismiss as a mere pretext the well-documented policies of the Cypriot Greeks towards the Cypriot Turks, as outlined in a previous letter Wake up to real objective of Greek Cypriots by Martin Shaw.

For eleven years between 1963 and 1974 there were relentless attempts, as Shaw so chillingly reminded us, in Nicos Sampon's own words to achieve 'enosis' (annexation by Greece) and 'annihilate the Turkish Cypriots'. These attempts went on despite the presence of a UN peace keeping force from 1964 onwards. Given that the Greeks were undeterred by the UN force, the suggestion that Turkish troops could have simply withdrawn seemingly relies on nothing other than the belief that Greek Cypriots would have suddenly experienced a total change in philosophy towards Turkish Cypriots. This belief is not supported by the events of the subsequent 32 years.

Far from moving away from that era, every Greek Cypriot president since then, with one short- term exception, have been former Eoka members. The architects and engineers of those policies have remained in charge. Indeed, the current president, Tassos Papadopoulos, was formerly deputy chief to Akritas - author of the notorious Akritas Plan. Notorious but not quite extreme enough for Papadopoulos, who instead submitted a plan detailing how every Turkish Cypriot could be exterminated within 75 minutes, as documented by Makarios Drusiotis in his book First Partition: 1963-64 Cyprus .

The mentality of an electorate that keeps such men in power was explained by R Whitehead, a resident of Greek Cyprus, during a BBC debate - 'The Greek Cypriots hate the Turkish and reunification of the Island would only lead to a return of the ethnic cleansing which occurred under Archbishop Makarios' regime'.

While Greek Cypriots bemoan the settlement of tens of thousands of Anatolians to Turkish Cyprus, it should not be forgotten that there is a diaspora of several hundred thousand Cypriot Turks around the world who were forced to flee during 1963-1974, or those who have because of the crippling economic embargo during the 32 years since. The embargo is ethnic cleansing by another name, and when the Greek Cypriot leadership protests migration by Turkish nationals it is really a protest that the depletion of the Turkish population on Cyprus is being prevented.

Cyprus has the same leadership pushing the same ideas - a Cyprus without any meaningful Turkish involvement. Papadopoulus made little attempt to disguise this while arguing against the unification of Cyprus. The only thing that has changed is the presence of Turkish troops to prevent those ideas from becoming a reality.

The Annan Plan would have reduced Greek and Turkish troops, over phases, to 950 and 650 respectively. The withdrawal, that Anastasiadis naively argues could have occurred in 1974, could have begun in 2004 had the Greek Cypriots shown the willingness to change by accepting a settlement on a basis that was endorsed as fair by the United Nations, the European Union, the UK, the US, Russia and even Greece.

The Cypriot Greeks instead chose to overwhelmingly reject the idea that Turks have any significant place in Cyprus.