[freddie]

Originally Posted by haku

And 120 million in a couple of decades (and up to 150 million), one third more than Germany, twice more than France or the UK, one sixth of the total EU population… That will give Turkey an overwhelming weight in EU decisions, Turkey will be in control of the EU and that's an insane risk to take.

But I still fail to see how they're going to be "in control of the EU" soley cause of their massive populace, seeing as how the EU parliament doesn't have same legislative authority as national parliaments. And even so, don't forget that their birth rate might fall significantly once they reach a comfortable economic level in which most people will start treasure their own luxuries in life more than they'll be willing to take care of a large family. It happened in pretty much most developed countries in the world and I doubt Turkey will be an exception. If anything economic currents will help in restraining the country's over-population problems.

Originally Posted by fanoff

muhahaha.you take things so easy.its not like that as you should know.But you dont even try to listen to me and even understand it.Dont comment on things you dont know much about.who told you that we think greeks dont exist in cyprus?oh,hush i should have thought that you think that Turkish people dont exist in Cyprus,then thought we think the same way.

Originally Posted by fanoff

thats so true,but you dont see the fact that history is always lived.what writes on the books is not always true,or not always include what all happened,just the thing which will do some work for you later,anyway im not trying to change anybody's mind as you are trying to do,so...

That's a very non-chalant way of going about things. While I do initially support Turkey's bid to be accepted into the EU Haku & Spyretto raised some valid points which your country has to come to terms with politically and ideologically and you just attacked those points without any merit or credible arguments in your case. That's the kind of attitude I hope your leaders won't show when they're negotiating with the EU. And frankly... saying "what's written in books is not always true" (in this case at least) can be percieved as thinking all historians in the world are probably wrong and they're conspiring against Turkey when they write something negative about it.
Turkey DOES have a lot of skeletons in the closet and you can bet your ass no one just made them up out of thin air. It's your country's duty though to recognize and make amends for those mistakes.

Originally Posted by spyretto

You want to get your hands in the Aegean, maybe we want Istanbul back...no harm in wanting something. But we cannot ignore history as freddie did when he said why don't the Turks have more of the Aegean

I did?

On a different note:
Regarding this whole thing about the Turks not being part of our cultural herritage and things like that... that may be true to an extent. But an ironic part is that genetically most Turkish people today are very much indoeuropean, with a significant helenic gene pool prsent within the population. See if they'd retaint heir original gene herritage they'd really be a mongoloid race (oriental), like people people of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and a those other ex Soviet republics (partially) are. But it seems like Turks these days are mainly caucasoids and if there IS a mongoloid genetic presence it's certainly very faint. So as far as their genes are concerned... they're as European as it gets.

About city names: Old city names are only contraversial when there're political agendas (or at least political ideologies) behind it. For instance old latin names for major cities are widely used here in popular culture (Emona, the Roman name for our capital Ljubljana is also a chain of stores, Celeia, the Roman name for Celje (our 3rd largest city) is a dairy etc) Given the history of Constantinople/Istambul it's really very obvious Turks would consider it a great symbol of triumph over their adversaries, so it's kind of logical this would be a touchy subject (as it is for Europeans).