Cyprus: two peoples, a democracy and a state - documented in the archives

In accordance with the presidential statement, President Tatar said in his speech during the reception that the documents and materials in the archives are historical treasures that show what opportunities there were in the past, what processes the nation went through and how we arrived at today.

The reception was attended by Presidential Private Secretary Çağın Zort, Special Advisor to the President Gokhan Güler and researcher Mustafa Hasim Altan.

The Tatar president noted the importance of reading and analyzing archives and passing them on to future generations. He also emphasized that more financial resources have been allocated compared to the past for the development of archives and the training of specialists and academicians.

President Tatar said that the archives of the Ottoman Empire are also located in Cyprus and expressed the importance of good preservation of documents, their digitalization for easy access and use by mankind.

President Tatar pointed out that there are two separate peoples, states and democracies in Cyprus and that creating this impression of the dominance of only one people, namely the Greeks, in Cyprus is wrong. He said this can be proven by documents on the existence of two different peoples and democracy in Cyprus.

The basis for us as a state and a people are the documents in the archives.

The Head of the State Archives of the Presidential Administration, Prof. Ugur Unal, pointed out in his speech that the Republic of Turkey ranks among the first three places in the world in terms of the volume and quality of its archives and that the Ottoman Archives alone contain more than 100 million documents and 1 million book records.

After the speeches, gifts were presented.