Talk:Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus

Naming

I would like to note the justify the current name of the article "Mainland Turks in Northern Cyprus", as opposed to "Turkish settlers" and "Turkish immigrants" for future reference. While these two names have been used far more extensively to describe the group, this article is intended to include any residents of Northern Cyprus who had been living in Turkey or who descended from those living in Turkey in 1974 (this includes Kurds, but the article will only refer to them as "Turks", meaning Turkish citizens, for the sake of brevity). This includes students, soldiers, scholars and other Turkish people who have moved to Cyprus through intermarriages etc. This is to approach taken by Mete Hatay, who has done the only extensive research on this group of people. He criticizes the shortcomings of the term "settler" in his article, and points out that while definitely not all mainland Turks who live in Cyprus are settlers, the use of the term "settler" is too simplistic for such a complex issue, where a number of individuals have integrated into the Turkish Cypriot society and it is not clear where to draw the line. --GGT (talk) 17:43, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

"Mainland Turks" is an almost non-existent term in literature. On the other hand "Turkish settlers" is a widely established one. In general articles about ethnic groups do not include people of short term stay like foreign students, soldiers on duty or tourists etc. and in general people that don't belong to the local society, which is the case of settlers.Alexikoua (talk) 19:48, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment firstly. I could not agree more with the fact that "Turkish settlers" and "Turkish immigrants" are much more established uses. However, comprehensive "literature" on this issue is non-existent as far as I could access it so far (I still have to check some libraries though, but that does not appear to be possible anytime soon with my current schedule). The resources that do exist tend to only talk about settlement policies of Turkey and its reflections in terms of international law, but this is a very superficial way of looking at the issue, which I wish to avoid. The only specialist, who has researched in depth this issue with regards to all its intricacies and lacks any bias, is Mete Hatay, and he talks in detail about the shortcomings of the term "Turkish settlers" in his article. Given that the only proper literature on this topic avoids the use of the term, I believe that there is good reason not to go along with the superficial mainstream.

I truly apologize for having left the article in its current state, I intend to return and work on it whenever I have the opportunity. Perhaps what I will say will be more clear when I go ahead with that. The settlers transferred to Cyprus under Turkish-Turkish Cypriot joint policies after 1974 are by no means the only Mainland Turks in Northern Cyprus. Even if we exclude groups such as soldiers and students, there is a significant population which simply migrated to Cyprus because of its economic welfare (of course the creation of this image could be interpreted as Turkish policy, but that is a totally different discussion). Moreover, there is a significant community of Turkish scholars and other "white-collar workers" who have migrated to Cyprus through several means, and there is a high rate of intermarriage. I would disagree with excluding soldiers and settlers from the article anyway; students are a very important part of the cultural and economic life in Northern Cyprus, and the part about economic life also holds true for the soldiers. Yes, I am well aware that this goes against the case "in general" but Cyprus is a unique case in so many ways, so trying to apply clear-cut generalizations and resulting solutions would not be a constructive approach IMHO. This applies to an attempt to impose WP:COMMONNAME in this case.

Thus, I would like to emphasize that "Turkish settlers" would be a painfully inaccurate generalization in this case for a community that reaches far beyond the settler population. I would like to point out the following: "Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that." (WP:PRECISION) and "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. Neutrality is also considered; our policy on neutral titles, and what neutrality in titles is, follows in the next section." (WP:COMMONNAME)

--GGT (talk) 20:12, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 4 May 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move. (non-admin closure) Alakzi (talk) 21:32, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

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Mainland Turks in Northern Cyprus → Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus – The present title is not preferred in literature and the internet, a quick search in google & google books makes this clear:

• googlebooks: "mainland turks in northern cyprus" [[1]]: 1, "turkish settlers in northern cyprus" [[2]] 102,
• google: "mainland turks in northern cyprus": [[3]]:12 (most of the wiki-pages),"turkish settlers in northern cyprus" [[4]] 59.
  Per WP:COMMONNAME Turkish Settlers appears to be the most appropriate name in this case, since it concerns only the mainland Turks that came to Cyprus after 1974. No wonder the Annan Plan recognizes this group under this name [[5]]. I have also to note that the argument that "Mainland Turks of NC" include people of short-term stay (visitors, tourist, workers, soldiers, students) coming from the same country is inconsistent with similar articles of ethnic groups in wikipedia. Not to mention that this kind of people are clearly not part of a local society, thus it would be inappropriate to include them in a common article under a name which isn't preferred in general. --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 04:20, 11 May 2015 (UTC) Alexikoua (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - I will shortly enumerate the reasons below for the ease of reference. The argument above does nothing to address to issues raised above, please see above for more about why "Turkish settlers" is not an appropriate name for the article.
  • 1) The common name guideline is not a one-size-fits-all recipe, this is clearly an exceptional case as elaborated above. It is very, very important not to treat this as a standard topic, it is an extremely complex and multidimensional issue.
  • 2) Google searches do not establish a "use in literature" and any use of Google searches to establish such a claim is invalid. There is almost no literature (literature being in the usual sense of being established use in reliable academic sources written by people with in-depth knowledge regarding the issue; there are otherwise numerous brief descriptions of the group as "settlers" but nothing substantial) present on this topic apart from the articles cited in the text; Mete Hatay, the only expert on the issue, clearly states that "settler" is not an appropriate designation for the whole of this group.
  • 3) Further evidence to support the idea that Google searches are of no use whatsoever in determining the name of the article: a lot of those results actually refer to the report cited in the article, which uses "settlers" in inverted commas and as stated above, criticizes the use of the term as a general label. Many others are from forums, political debates, nationalistic Greek websites. There is a legal document that uses the term to denote claims made by the Republic of Cyprus. These are not the sort of sources that we must be using to name an article for, and I believe these are what are meant by "use in internet".
  • 4) Now, there is another article about this issue by Neophytos Loizides. I must note that Loizides mostly takes up the issue from a political point of view and assesses its political implication, and apparently has no resources to make a detailed assessment about the nature of this ethnic group, as opposed to Hatay. Quoting from the article, "Rival accounts of the Cypriot conflict for instance tend to concentrate on the most suitable categories, ignoring either the settler or the migrant dimension in their assessment of post-1974 populations relocated from Turkey. Such frames are equally problematic because they narrowly focus only on one dimension of a complex reality downplaying the ‘hybrid’ nature of contested migration and settler politics." and "Second, the article distinguishes between settler and migrant categories, while highlighting significant empirical, normative and policy-related overlaps between the two." This must be speaking for itself (note that the article usually calls them "settlers/immigrants"). There is no single group of mainland Turks in Northern Cyprus that we can call "settlers", hence the inclusive name of the article. Labeling this group plainly as "settlers" despite such evidence would not only be outrageously inaccurate, but also a violation of WP:POV as we would be picking a side on the debate.
  • 5) In a population of 300,000, there are 40,000 soldiers and 70,000 students, the majority of whom are mainland Turks. The students especially have an enormous impact on Turkish Cypriot society, economics and culture. "Not preferred in general" is no solid reason not to include these people in the article, they may not be permanent residents but are an important part of the sociological makeup of Northern Cyprus and are dealt together in an article that we can consider a landmark in this issue.
  • 6) Naming the article "settlers" simply to take into consideration the other, permanent non-settler groups discussed in the article, namely: "academic staff, workers with permits and illegitimate workers lacking permits", "skilled laborers and white-collar workers [...] and individual migrants". I see no argument presently that counters this.
• As such, any such renaming of the article would be inaccurate, biased and not constructive as it would block any approach based on sociological studies to document this ethnic group and its heterogeneous nature. --GGT (talk) 20:19, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
• Alexikoua, could you also provide actual evidence from the text of the plan to support your assertion that the plan recognizes them as such? The sources that you have pointed out to be seem to be either referring to the issue very superficially (with no actual details and discussion on the nature of the group), addressing the viewpoint of the Republic of Cyprus or Greek Cypriots or referring to texts with propagandistic names and no real appreciation of these people as a group such as "The Annan Plan and the Implantation of Turkish Settlers in the Occupied Territory of Cyprus". --GGT (talk) 20:28, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• Support "Turkish settlers" is overwhelmingly the more common usage in sources over "Mainland Turks", which is moreover vague. The argument that the all the various sources that use "settlers" should not be counted on the grounds that they are not "in-depth" enough, and that only source that should "count" on this matter is one Mete Hatay (who as it happens, is Turkish) is utterly ridiculous. "Settlers" is routine usage among sources in this area, for example here is an article in the Guardian I just came across today just at random [6]. Regarding the "students" and tourists, these are not permanent residents of the territory and thus this article would not apply to them. I don't see students and tourists included in similar articles (e.g. Greek Cypriots). As for the Turkish military, they are covered in another article Turkish Military Forces in Northern Cyprus , so that takes care of that. And as the Guardian article makes clear, many of these military personal are quite comfortably "settled" on the island. Having this article cover the Turkish military personnel would thus lead to content duplication. Moving the article to "Turkish settlers" is both in accordance with Wikipedia naming policy and is also much more focused and precise as a title. Athenean (talk) 04:46, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Ethnicity of the author is not a factor that affects the reliability of a source, bias is, and Mete Hatay is a completely neutral source writing an official report for the PRIO Cyprus Displacement Center, which has the most comprehensive resource available on displacement and resettlement in Cyprus, or even the demographic history of Cyprus, at village level, and it does not use the word "settlers" even once. I am not claiming that Hatay's report is the only source that should "count", I am pointing out that the neutral scholarly articles on the topic such as those by Loizides and Hatay all point out to the fact that "settler" is a highly loaded term, only that Hatay must be the source to determine the framework of this article as his report is the only source that fully scrutinizes the nature of these "settlers" - an argument that is not refuted by simply labeling it as "ridiculous", IMHO.

Now, this is another article from the Guardian, which, unlike the article pointed out by Athenean, goes beyond simply mentioning the "settlers". It continues the stance taken by researchers from both sides of the conflict, extrapolating the argument from ethnicity used by Athenean, to point out that "settlers" are not the neutral and established name of this group. It is very clear that "settler" is a term heavily used by one side of this argument, and actually uses the term mainland Turks to describe the group: "There is no agreement either on how to describe the tens of thousands of mainland Turks whom Denktash invited to the north since 1974, deliberately changing the island's ethnic balance. Are they settlers or immigrants? And do they have rights?"

No amount of brief mentions in "routine usage" found in Google Books or newspapers could change the fact that neutral scholarly articles focused entirely on this issue and in-depth descriptions in newspapers indicate the controversial nature of the term "settler", demonstrating that using the term would be a violation of POV. The Guardian uses the term "mainland Turks" precisely to enable a neutral presentation of this issue when it is discussed in depth. Core content policies override "vagueness" (and I do not see the current name as any more vague than Russians in Cyprus) and "common names" and "routine uses" established in resources that have been written by people with no scholarly history on the topic, or published in newspapers, which, despite their reputation, publish with often self-contradictory styles in different articles regarding the Cyprus dispute (see [7] and [8] in Al Jazeera).

The argument posed still does not take into consideration mainland Turks that have immigrated to Cyprus not as part of official settlement policies, but simply for economic reasons.

--GGT (talk) 16:36, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Huh? What on Earth are you talking about? That Guardian article you link to makes no mention of settlers at all. Usage of "settlers" is routine, in the Guardian [9] [10], New York Times [11] [12], BBC [13] and virtually all major English-language media. I really don't see the issue here, these people did "settle" on the island as a result of a "settlement" policy, therefore they are "settlers". I just don't see how that is non-neutral, any more than "Jewish settlers" is non-neutral. As for the economic argument, it is total malarkey and WP:OR, the international isolation of "Northern Cyprus" has had ruinous consequences for its economy. Besides, many Jewish settlers in the West Bank also settled for economic reasons, but they are still "settlers". It's a very neutral term to designate someone who has settled there. Athenean (talk) 02:37, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

• Support Per Athenean's valid points. I don't buy the argument of impartial, academic, in-depth sources. That seems to me like an argumentum ad verecundiam and represents a false choice namely that "settlers" is not an academically accepted term or that "settlers" is an inherently POV term or that we have to suppress the by far most common term by the term used by some specialists because "they know better". These are all false choices. In Wikipedia we go by the WP:COMMONNAME which is accurate and descriptive of the main core of that population. The term "Mainland Turks" is far too vague and obtuse to impart any information to the reader regarding the elephant in the room, i.e. the Turkish settlers. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 17:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
• Athenean, I apologize, that was a wrong link. This is the one I was talking about. The phrase "mainland Turks" is also used widely in media; The Telegraph: [14] [15], BBC: [16]. The economic argument is neither malarkey nor original research, it is thoroughly supported by Hatay's report and I suggest prior investigation before making such accusations that can potentially be considered as argumentum ad lapidem.
• Dr.K., you are correct in your assertion of my having utilized fallacious arguments, I retract that part of my statement. There is no denying that there has been a settlement policy by Turkey and the Denktaş government in Northern Cyprus, even the Turkish word used for this, "iskan", means settlement. When it comes to the settlers that have been settled as a part of the bilateral agreements between Northern Cyprus and Turkey and those whose settlement had been encouraged by the Denktaş administration, I have no objection against the word "settler" and I have used the word in the article. What IMHO constitutes POV is to categorically classify every single Turkish immigrant or mainland Turk in Northern Cyprus as a "settler", an opinion shared by Hatay and Loizides. The fact that the groups that cannot be classified as settlers are not taken into consideration in the majority of the sources that constitute the body of literature that is referred above does not affect this. My main concern is that this would mean that the demographic data from the census also cannot be used to give an accurate number, and that we would be left with non-academic, unreliable estimates.
• However, the direction that the debate is taking is very clear and to prevent any further time that could be used more productively being expended on this issue, I retract my opposition. --GGT (talk) 11:18, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The article has been translated to Greek

I 'd like to thank everyone involved.[17],[18] Τζερόνυμο (talk) 19:05, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

December 2018

@Ανδρέας Κρυστάλλης: thanks for the addition of material in your recent edits. Unfortunately, these edits pose a number of issues:

• You have manipulated the wording of the statement from the Encyclopedia of Human Rights. It is not the Turkish Cypriot position that "many settlers have severed their ties to Turkey, and that their children consider Cyprus to be their homeland". That is a statement given as fact by the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, an extremely authoritative source on the issue. The Turkish Cypriot position is actually quite distinct from that (stuff about TRNC citizenship etc.), and nowhere does the source state that this is the T/C position. I see this as a benevolent mistake, but will kindly ask of you to rectify it and restore the previous wording. Otherwise I'll have to revert.
• Framing the Greek Cypriot point of view as "the position of the internationally-recognised Government of Cyprus" is insidious POV. Wikipedia is not the voice of the international community, it is an encyclopedia. That the Greek Cypriot government is internationaly recognised does not give its statements more currency or validity as fact, and thus the recognition is not a salient point to be mentioned (and the implication from the framing here is clear). It is also not the position of "Cyprus". It is plain nonsense to say "Cyprus and Greece thus demand that settlers be made to return to Turkey" when talking about the Cyprus dispute. It falsely implies that this is the Turkish Cypriot position as well, or that Turkish Cypriots are not part of Cyprus. One must appreciate that this is quite distinct from mentioning Cyprus in other contexts in international relations. Thus it must be made clear that the Greek Cypriot position is just what it is, the Greek Cypriot position.

--GGT (talk) 02:13, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi. I did make a couple of changes, saying "the Republic of Cyprus", not "Cyprus", and mentioning the Encyclopedia of Human Rights. You can check them out. Ανδρέας Κρυστάλλης (talk) 16:56, 19 December 2018 (UTC)