When the magazine Monocle At the end of 2020, Greece was among the top ten countries with the greatest “soft power” in the world, many say, and rightly so.

An image with the Greek flag, which is like “soft power superstarappears on the front page of an authoritative international newspaper, it could be advertised all over the world as a confirmation of the deliverance from the hardships of a memorable period and at the same time heralding the discovery of promising new prospects for development. Much, no, more when we talk about the front page of a magazine like Monocle, which is presented as a brand capable of setting trends internationally.

Two years and 22 issues later (from No. 139 with a Greek cover to No. 161 this March), Monocle returns with an article that is, however, alarming. In many ways, no, more precisely because we are talking about a magazine that tends to see trends and highlight them.

“Dividing Lines”

OUR Hanna Lucinda SmithBritish journalist based in Istanbul (and author of “Erdogan’s Rise: A Danger for Europe“which is published in Greek by the Gutenberg edition), he signs the article on the occupation in issue 161 of the Monocle, entitled “dividing lines“(“Dividing lines”).

“The political will for the reunification of Cyprus has been lost,” she writes. Smith. And since that will has been lost, “isolated Turks look forward to international recognition and tourist attraction,” continues the British journalist against the backdrop of Varosi, a once-cosmopolitan coastal area south of the occupied city of Famagusta, which she herself visited accompanied by a photographer (also from Istanbul) Bradley Secker.

It was in September 2019 when the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu entered the body Varosh accompanied by journalists and in October 2020, when the occupying forces unilaterally opened part of Varosh beach in violation of UN Security Council resolutions 550/1984 and 789/1992.

Briefly looking back at the events of the 1970s, the Monocle journalist prefers not to mention the Turkish invasion and occupation. Instead, he speaks of a “civil war between Greek-speaking and Turkic-speaking communities”.

Returning to the present day, she describes the case of a Greek Cypriot who wants to return to Varosi to claim his family’s property. However, the claim in question must, as is the case today, be made under an occupational administration, in the shadow of the narrative that Varosh wants to be a Vakuf/Ottoman property under the control of the EVKAF.

The Monocle correspondent describes the context in detail without referring to the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council. She herself does not see the occupying forces in Cyprus. He names Pergamo Bayarmudu and Trikomo Yeni Iskele., the pseudo-state “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)”, Ersin Tatar “president” and the administration of the occupied “government” (without quotes, all of the above in the Monocle’s text).

Complex Tatar

“You cannot turn back time. They speak Greek. We speak Turkish. We do not have anything in common. We breathe the same air – nothing else“say so Ersin Tatarwhile talking to Monocle and British journalist Hannah Lucinda Smith. During said interview, it is shown that Tatar receives a call from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he refers to as “my president” according to what is mentioned in the related text.

Casinos, cryptocurrencies and alcohol

A British journalist writes that in the occupied territories there are now “16 public universities that accept thousands of students from Africa and Asia”, 36 casinos, “investors” from Iran And Russia (who throws money into real estate mainly in Trikomo), cryptocurrency exchanges and alcoholic drinks, which are much cheaper than in Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus. At the same time, there is a “new airport” like hers. Timbu (Erkan in the text of the Monocle), which is preparing to start operating in the coming months, taking flights not only from Turkey, but also, possibly, from private Russian airlines.

“My proposal for Varosha is to use it as a free trade zone where Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots will be forced to become business partners,” Serdar Denktash, son of Rauf Denktash, told Monocle.

Varosh has indeed, at times in the past, been a potential springboard for building trust between the two communities. However, in 2023, this trust is picking up wounds … which foreign publications are trying to embellish.