Cyprus Peace Operation through the eyes of veterans Tekirdağ: Oral history study

Due to its geographical and strategic location, Cyprus, one of the most important islands of the Mediterranean, has been the focus of attention of states throughout history. It has hosted many civilizations until today and has also faced with political and military interventions. Cyprus, which became under the rule of Ottomans in 1571, was temporarily passed to England in 1878. The efforts of the Greeks to annex Cyprus to Greece together with the British administration on the island started with their ideas under the name of enosis. For this purpose, they carried out attacks and massacres against the Turkish Cypriots with the organizations they founded, especially EOKA. The Turkish Cypriots also established the Turkish Resistance Organization in order to protect themselves against these attacks. Turkey that could not be oblivious to these attacks and massacres, stated that the situation in Cyprus was serious enough to require a military intervention by Turkey and carried out a military intervention in Cyprus on 20 July 1974, using its right of intervention as a guarantor state. In this thesis, the Cyprus Peace Operation which took place as two operations was explained by doing an oral history study with the Cyprus veterans who participated in this military intervention from the province of Tekirdağ. It is a two sided study prepared by/with the people who provide the oral explanations and the researcher. Keywords: Cyprus, Cyprus Veterans, Oral History, Tekirdağ.