Kizilyurek pays candid tribute to late publisher Vasos Ftochopoulos

Nicosia, Cyprus. Turkish Cypriot academic and former Akel MEP Niyazi Kizilyurek on Monday paid a candid tribute to the late publisher and restaurateur Vasos Ftochopoulos, who died last week aged 76.

Writing under the title “I will not say go to hell for you”, Kizilyurek described Ftochopoulos as “a personality unique in its kind” and characterised his rhetoric as a form of “anarcho-nationalism”.

Political views and rhetoric

Kizilyurek wrote that Ftochopoulos dismissed the Republic as “a farce” and called Greek Cypriots who supported a federal solution “Turks who speak Greek”.

He said Ftochopoulos had also accused most Greek Cypriots of abandoning the cause of Enosis, referring to them as “Neo-Cypriot parasites”.

First meeting at Aegeon

Kizilyurek recalled first meeting Ftochopoulos in 1988, when he visited the Aegeon restaurant despite friends advising him not to do so.

Inside the restaurant, located in a courtyard within the walls of old Nicosia, he found a banner bearing the slogan, “the only good Turk is a dead Turk”.

The restaurant attracted crowds on summer evenings, and Kizilyurek said Ftochopoulos “made excellent souvlaki”.

Banner removed

Kizilyurek noted that Greek Cypriots who supported federation, whom Ftochopoulos had described as “parasites”, were nevertheless “his best customers”. He suggested they may have felt “a twinge of guilt for not being true patriots like him”.

He wrote that Ftochopoulos, a refugee from Yialousa in Karpasia, “believed he had every right to harbour hatred toward Turks”.

Kizilyurek said he told Ftochopoulos that the slogan echoed the Nazi-era phrase, “the only good Jew is a dead Jew”, and that he should be ashamed. The banner was later removed, he recalled, adding that others had also objected to it.