Cyprus: Pro-European flags

Last modified: 2003-09-27 by
Keywords: european union | stars: 12 (yellow) | map |
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by Dean McGee (based on images by Zeljko Heimer and António Martins)

• Context and description of the flag

See also:

• Cyprus
• Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
• European Union

Context and description of the flag

In January 2003, Turkish Cypriots in Nicosia demonstrated with flags of the European Union with a golden map of Cyprus inside. The demonstrators demanded a new, free of any troops, united Cyprus and the withdrawal of Mr.Denktash, the President of the Trukish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

The demonstrators used at least two variants of the European Union flag with the map of Cyprus:

• The first variant had a yellow map (or golden since some of these flags were made by the demostrators themselves) inside the twelve yellow stars of the European Union flag.
• The second variant was more interesting: the twelve stars were again yellow as in the European Union flag but the map of Cyprus was copper! A yellow shading below the copper map could be seen! It was in fact a yellow map "under" a cooper one!

Another similar flag hold by a demonstrator showed instead of the Cyprus map some words in Turkish, inside the 12 stars.

Panayiotis Panayiotou, 13 January 2003

Another flag was used by the Turkish Cypriots during their pro-unity rally, made of a blue map on a yellow field, with some inscription within the map.

Jan Zrzavy, 14 January 2003

On some flags was written under the stars in golden letters: "CYPRIOTES ARE EU-CITIZENS".

Jan Patrick Fisher, 15 January 2003