Could Trump’s Gaza Plan Resolve Conflict in Cyprus and Kurdistan?: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey may take part in a task force “to monitor the implementation of the agreement on the ground.” Given Turkey’s backing for Hamas and Erdoğan’s refusal to acknowledge Hamas terrorism, that should be a non-starter.
Still, an international force to police Gaza now seems inevitable as Israel pulls back and Hamas releases the remaining hostages it holds.
Still, Erdoğan’s endorsement of the ceasefire is crucial because it sets a precedent that could resolve two persistent conflicts for which Turkey is at the center, or at least strip away the international legitimacy that Turks claim.
A Look to History
The first is Cyprus. More than half a century after Turkey invaded Cyprus, the Turkish army continues to occupy one-third of the island. Turks justify the occupation in a desire to protect the Cypriot Muslim population. Chronology, however, belies Turkey’s claims. The Turkish invasion came in two waves. The first, motivated by Turkey’s desire to prevent a union between Greece and Cyprus, established a beachhead. Shortly after, the Greek junta collapsed and, with it, any threat Greece posed to the Cypriot Muslim minority. The major Turkish invasion came as negotiations were underway in Geneva; what transpired was a land grab, blessed for cynical reasons by Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, followed by Turkey’s ethnic cleansing of its new zone. In the decades since, Turkey has poured settlers into the region, drowning out the voice of the Cypriot Muslims that the Turkish occupation was meant to protect. Today, the chief threat to the livelihood and culture of Cypriot Muslims comes not from democratic Greece or democratic Cyprus, but from Turkey’s own autocracy.
If a solution to Gaza involves a phased Israeli withdrawal, then why should the solution to Cyprus not involve a phased Turkish withdrawal? By endorsing the Trump plan for Gaza, Erdoğan tacitly acknowledges its applicability for Cyprus or, at least, exposes Turkey’s hypocrisy and the illegitimacy of its diplomatic position.
As Israel withdraws and to prevent the reconstitution of Hamas, Trump’s peace plan will see the deployment of international monitors, again an element that Erdoğan endorses by volunteering Turks.
While Turks, as Hamas supporters, and the former pre-World War I colonial power are not appropriate for Gaza, Erdoğan’s embrace of monitoring is valid and opens the door to pushing forward the Cyprus peace.
Simply put, as Turkey’s army withdraws and Turkish settlers depart, international monitors in northern Cyprus could assuage any legitimate concerns Turks have regarding the human rights of the remaining Cypriot Muslims. A consortium of regional states—Abraham Accords countries and European Union members—could credibly report and protect civilians as the legitimate Cypriot government re-establishes its authority. The same monitors might also facilitate the departure into exile to Turkey or Qatar of Ersin Tatar, Mehmet Ali Talat, Derviş Eroğlu, and others who acted as illegitimate leaders in the occupation zone.
In Cyprus, the Trump model might also resolve the ongoing hostage crisis. While they have not received attention on college campuses or in the Western press, over recent months, Turkish and occupation forces have taken and held ordinary Greek Cypriots as hostages after they visited the north to inspect property in the occupied zone whose titles they owned.
If Trump can demand Hamas release its Israeli and American hostages, and if Erdoğan can join Hamas in demanding the release of legitimate security prisoners with blood on their hands, then certainly both Trump and Erdoğan can agree that Cypriot hostages must come home.
Trump desires a Nobel Peace Prize, but his previous efforts at peace—with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and with Armenia and Azerbaijan—have not survived even the first months after signing ceremonies; it is unclear if the Israel-Hamas ceasefire will fare better.
A Plan that Ports to Other Regions?
Still, Trump could be a dark horse if his efforts at Israel-Palestinian peacemaking trap Turkey into resolving another seemingly intractable problem: Kurdistan.
Kurdish nationalism runs longer historically than its Palestinian counterpart; after all, until the creation of the State of Israel, most Palestinians, many also recent immigrants to the land, considered themselves Syrian. Kurds are also the largest people without a nation.
Most Kurds live in Turkey, but they tend to adopt a more moderate religious outlook and a more pluralistic, tolerant political culture. Historically, Turkish violence toward Kurds exceeds the casualty figures Hamas claims regarding Gaza. The Turkey-Kurdistan Workers Party fight, Turks claim, killed more than 40,000 people, mostly Kurdish; that does not include Turkish suppression of Kurdish revolts in the 1920s and 1930s.
In recent years, the Turkish army has flattened parts of Diyarbakir, Mardin, and Cizre; photos of the destruction are reminiscent of Gaza, with the significant difference that the cities were largely peaceful and not hubs of any group as lethal as Hamas.
The Gaza model could also apply to Kurdistan, which has as much of a claim to statehood as Palestine.
The Turkish army should withdraw beyond Kurdistan’s borders to allow a multinational force to monitor human rights in the region. Turkey’s Kurdish hostages—including PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan and imprisoned parliamentarian Selahattin Demirtaş should go free.
Trump may not yet be deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward peace. Still, he could become a real contender if he not only achieves a lasting peace between Israel and Gaza, but also persuades Erdoğan to apply the same construct that the Turkish leader already endorses to Cyprus and Kurdistan.
At the very least, Trump’s Gaza deal provides a roadmap for the United Nations to resolve the Cyprus conflict this year, and a new basis upon which to begin negotiating for Kurdish freedom.
About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin
Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. The opinions and views expressed are his own. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed US Navy and Marine units. The views expressed are the author’s own.
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Jim
October 9, 2025 at 2:33 pm
There is another conflict where this model could work:
The Ukraine conflict.
The Stepan Bandera idelogy of Kiev’s leadership isn’t much different than Hamas and their tactics are just as ruthless as Hamas.
Upon the bloody, violent overthrow of the democratically elected president a police-state was gradually implemented before the invasion against Russian speakers, media, and political candidates, and Kiev engaged in random shelling into Donetsk City, and act of terrorism same as Hamas, over 10,000 died in those terror attacks.
Stepan Bandera’s ideology was the justification of murdering tens of thousands of Poles, Russians, and Jews. Kiev wants to kill Russians wherever they find them, within Ukraine or beyond into Russia.
It’s a regime which has no legitimacy, same as Hamas, and takes actions which lead to the mass suffering, death, and destruction of its people and land. Something I don’t tolerate for any government.
Zelensky has seen off to their death around 600,000 men and the destruction of the infrastructure of the country.
It’s time to put the ultimatum to Zelesnky and the Banderites: sue for peace, accept neutrality, equal rights for Russian speakers, a limited military, and new elections for whatever is left of Ukraine.
(And, best to leave the country, but if not, never attempt to regain power again.)
Trump can do this. He has more leverage over Kiev and Zelensky than he does over Jerusalem and Netanyahu.
But the situations are roughly similar: a terrorist regime attacking innocent people.
Time for Trump to give up the idea of Kellogg’s demarcation line where West of the line being a NATO-ized Ukraine. It will never happen, it’s existential for Russia much as the situation is existential for Israel in Gaza, as both respective countries governments see it.
It’s hard for me to spit out, Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, but if he brings the hammer down on Zelensky and the Banderites in Kiev same as Hamas and achieves the aforementioned peace, then I guess anything is possible and Trump might win a Nobel Peace Prize, imagine that.
Kiev is finished.
But they need to come to terms with it and accept the Russian’s peace plan, just like Hamas accepted Trump’s Peace plan.
It’s doable if Trump delivers the heart-to-heart reality to Zelensky and the Stepan Bandera crowd in Ukraine, you are done.
Swamplaw Yankee
October 10, 2025 at 4:10 am
What is up with the Doc? His much keyboarded about topic: Cyprus is back? Is the USA or the WEST suddenly worried about the original inhabitants, the 51 years back inhabitants? Is anyone in the WEST pushing for these inhabitants receiving their land back?
Oh, the land is just a vector for a new political/religious invasion from Turkey. The doctor has not explained Smyrna of 1922 or anything about those Armenians, Assyrians, Pontic Greeks, etc that were extirpated from their ancient home lands.
Ephesus was the original population hang out of John and Paul as they struggled to found Christianity. What does the doc point out about the state of Ephesiology in that territory. Lots of Christians that still live peacefully there in 2025?
The Putin KGB was alive and well in Central Europe when the muslim attack on Cyprus erupted. In 1986 the Kremlin pushed the policy to the Serbs to select a mono subject. That Serbian speakers must be rescued from all the other tribal areas of Yugoslavia. That scam worked well in the inner beltway. Before you knew it, Clinton was giving away free USA air frame stealth technology to the PRC CCP and then bombing the PRC CCP embassy with lethal results. Blaming the French for this Clinton adventure did not work out well.
To this day, the USA adventure in the Balkans seems murky to most Yankees.
Ad rem: the Putin NAZI-like FSB used this same scam on the POTUS Obama White House to great success. Thirsting for FREE Ukrainian Real Estate Putin’s LONG GAME to steal Ukrainian soil was based on the ruuzzkie ethnic speaker scam. How does that work?
Well, the 2010-2014 ruuzzkies deny all and any connection to the centuries of Genocide their ancestors perpetrated for a 1000 years on the inhabitants of Ukraine. Their con is: there was zero, zip nada ruzzkie families involved in the Genocide of 20,000,000 Ukrainians in 1932-33’s HOLODOMOR. There were only bolshevik commies and Soviets that butchered all those Ukrainians: not a single church going ruuzzkie was down in Ukraine those years, got that down pat you genius POTUS Obama! Not a single parasite ruuzzkie speaker moved into those millions of vacant FREE homes, houses, farms and towns, Mr. Hussein!
Tell that to Hussein Obama and tell Obama that the innocent ruuzzkie speakers just want to warm up for FREE on illegally stolen Ukrainian soil. So, as the MSM + White House elite snored away, the NAZI-like FSB ignited their long planned, well paid ruuzzkie speaking networks inside Ukraine in 2014.
The Doc forgets to reveal that the Turks, wearing what-ever Halloween costume have long planned extirpation of all other ancient peoples that they have conquered. The magic of Genocide before 1921 and after 1921 seems to illogically depend on what Halloween costume the wielders of sharp knife blades had rented.
The same with the Ruuzzkies orc families of muscovy. Their many, many tsars needed GNP for slaves, concubines and palaces! Centuries of bi-annual mass abduction of little Ukrainian children to sell to muslim slave buyers from Turkey made the Ruuzzkies ethnics the easy heavy weight of gold.
Who in the WEST cares today to know how many millions of Ukrainians were lost to this mass abduction of Ukrainians for high profit human trafficking! Were the most Ukrainians butchered and mass abducted pre-1615 or after 1615? What ruuzzkie ethnic slave trade family made the most GNP gold for which tsar in what year? The 2025 shills for tsarling Putin refuse to focus on that fascinating aspect of their genetic ancestors.
1615 is a great date as Samual Champlain was creating French North America and got snowed in on Georgian Bay in Ontario. Of course, in 1616 the USA was already created and the Washington DC streetcars were smoothly running Yankees to the Congress building.
For some strange Reason, the leader of Ukraine, the Hetman P. Orlyk created the worlds’ first written Constitution in 1710. Oh, that was to deflect the orc ruuzzkie family sex-slave abductors from their uncontrolled but legal sale of “Lolita” packages to their business associates running the Ottoman Black Sea sex slave fleet.
Why the hell did the rich elite of the British colonies wait for so many decades to copy the concepts of the 1710 Ukrainian constitution??
The British colony of Cyprus is not comparable to Ukraine. The ethnic ruuzzkie genetic need to Genocide Ukrainians in whatever century is blatant. The need to evict the progeny of ancient ruuzzkie sex slave abductors is imperative for the world to understand. That the progeny of ruuzzkie slaver families scream out names like Bandera promptly identifies them as touts that demand Ukrainian soil and children be stolen illegally! The attempt to bamboozle American readers is way, way too easy.
The MAGA POTUS Trump elite seems incapable of leading the WEST. The test is in the comprehension of the MAGA POTUS Trump elite that all illegally occupied Ukrainian soil is the ONE topic that the USA must DEMAND of the ancient criminal ethnic tribe known as orc ruuzzkie of muscovy. With that one demand from POTUS Trump the Genocide in 2025 of Ukrainians withers away as the orc butchers self-realize their scam is over, kaput!
The Americans finally understand only then the betrayal of POTUS Obama of the WEST! That POTUS Trump has the internal moral courage in 2025 to stop that vile damage from the 2014 OBAMA moral turpitude.
Try it POTUS Trump! Change world history, and, I speculate, you will be awarded a NOBEL Peace prize. -30-
Jim
October 10, 2025 at 1:12 pm
Are there any possibilities of seeing Cyprus unified under Cypriot government?
Maybe.
The Turkish occupied third of the island is mostly the mountain ridge which runs the length of the island although it does extend to the capitol of Cyprus, Nicosia.
What you see is a divided city. The Greek Cypriot side of the city is developing with high rises, new building and a hustle and bustle (although, there is a lull at present). The Turkish side is quaint and quiet with narrow streets and is a great refresher course on 1950’s or older architecture.
Turkish Nicosia is languishing, a backwater, and that pretty much describes the rest of Turkish occupied Cyprus for that matter.
The island would be much more dynamic if it was unified under Cypriot government.
President Erdogan and Turkey don’t have the money or interest in Turkish occupied Cyprus (they have enough beautiful beaches on the Turkish coast). It’s just a “chess piece on the board” when Erdogan points at a map to brag about his Ottoman-style power, influence, and favor to his guests and confidants.
What would get Erdogan to let go of his northern part of the island?
Pay off Erdogan. Turkey is hurting financially, partly because of Erodogan’s financial mismanagement and cooking the books, but the West’s international banking system has also been stepping on the throat of Turkey’s currency the Lira for decades now, it practically isn’t worth the paper its printed on.
Take the West’s foot off the value of the Lira and Erdogan would be much obliged, but there is more. The sea channel which runs between Turkey and Cyprus is potentially loaded with hydrocarbons, likely running towards natural gas, but also oil, no one knows the exact composition as the channel hasn’t been explored in detail for hydrocarbons, that I’m aware of.
Give assurance to Erdogan that western oil companies in tandem with Turkish oil companies will explore it together with Turkey’s sovereignty recognized for any hydrocarbons found at the end of the drill bit.
This arrangement or contract could also be done on Turkey’s Black Sea coast as there is also potential for hydrocarbons on the sea bottom there as well.
Turkey’s oil industry would get western technological help and know how based from our Gulf of Mexico exploration and operations.
This is a win-win proposal for Turkey and Cyprus (and western oil companies).
Likely, Cyprus would be more dynamic and Turkey would be more dynamic.
Yes, this isn’t about some snooker deal to rip off Erdogan and Turkey… that won’t work, Erdogan is wily as an old fox, yes, greedy & vain, willing to cook the books but not stupid and looking for a deal.
You have to make it worthwhile for him to relinquish the territory. Maybe a sweetener in Syria might help Erdogan cut bait on Cyprus.
But that’s the idea if you really want a unified Cyprus… and no, Cyprus must stay independent and cannot unify with Greece, that also must be part of the bargain.
These are the kind of international arrangements that can work for the betterment of both countries.
Win-win agreements have the best chance of being durable & lasting and helps cement ties between countries where they have incentive not to engage in military adventurism, but peaceful civilian interaction and development.
How about that type of approach to foreign policy?
That’s how the United States can remain the leader of the western world by making the best deals which benefit both sides over the long term.
Jim
October 10, 2025 at 5:58 pm
Sorry Charlie, no Nobel Peace Prize for you.
Now, Trump still has a chance for next year.
There is only one way to end the Ukraine war.
The Russian Peace Plan needs to brokered by Trump, somehow someway, a tall order, but that would be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.
Better luck next year.
Krystal cane
October 13, 2025 at 12:34 am
Didn’t old fat boy say the war in Ukraine was going to end in a day
Fat man lied again
Yannis Stylianou
October 28, 2025 at 3:19 am
The invasion and occupation of Cyprus will end when a comprehensive plan that addresses the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East in total. Who believes that Turkey will end the occupation of Cyprus when they state openly their Ottoman empire objectives and the blue sea which is an expansionary and domination agenda in the Muslim world. From Cyprus they are 10 minutes away from the M.East, they will never give this up, in addition from Cyprus they want to control the Suez Canal with about 20% of world trade passing through. Any withdrawal and any peace plan to work out you need democracies in all countries around that area not theocratic away from Muslim law etc…Go figure now if this will ever happen!!!