Here, I'm examining the trafficking of illicit antiquities through Cyprus (rather than the illicit trade in Cypriot antiquities). Having described the process of the illicit antiquities trade from source through transit to market in a previous twinned post, in this post, I'll more fully explore the roles of Turkey and Cyprus in the illicit antiquities trade and the effects of the trafficking of illicit antiquities through Cyprus upon Cyprus.
Background notes on the development of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot deep states and on various internal Turkish conflicts (PKK-TSK, PKK-Turkish Hizbullah, PKK-KLA, PKK-Grey Wolves) became so detailed that they would have made the story impossible to follow, so I've posted them separately with just the most relevant information here.
Turkey and Cyprus
I will try to make the situation(s) easier to understand by splitting the trade into Turkish, northern Cypriot and southern Cypriot trades, but a lot of the material that is smuggled through Turkey passes through northern Cyprus, much of the trade that is smuggled through northern Cyprus passes through southern Cyprus, some of the trade that enters southern Cyprus directly is still run by the Turkish mafia, rather than the Kurdish or other mafia that dominate it and some organisations employ 'both Greek and Turkish Cypriots', as well as 'UN soldiers.... diplomat[s].... [and] officials'.
Moreover, in Turkey and northern Cyprus, Turkish politicians, government agents, police and militias, militaries, security organizations, ultranationalist terrorists, nationalist, racist or right-wing extremist groups and heroin traffickers (who also smuggle NATO military equipment), all collaborate (and sometimes compete) as a deep state, laundering their money through primarily northern Cypriot banks, brothels and casinos (where al Qaeda, too, do their offshore money laundering).(1)
Like the Turkish Deep State (and its subsidiary Turkish Cypriot Deep State), there is evidently an 'informal anti-democratic coalition' of 'Deep Kurds' and both structures benefit from and try to maintain and escalate the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, but Greece and Greek Cypriot southern Cyprus do not appear to have similar large, organised and powerful para-states (although each has a central intelligence service (KYP (ΚΥΠ (Κεντρική Υπηρεσία Πληροφοριών)))); still, while there is not much evidence of the smaller Greek Cypriot network's involvement in the drugs-and-antiquities trade, the Greek network's heroin and antiquities trades are 'very close'.(2)
Rather, with the P.L.O./Islamic Jihad long present, with Hezbollah smuggling cell members and weapons (and possibly, with the PKK, cigarettes) through southern Cyprus and Hizballah, Islamic Jihad and the PKK smuggling heroin, as well as the Tamil Tigers trafficking arms and with Greek and Greek Cypriot networks' cooperation with Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević and collaboration with the PKK, Greece and southern Cyprus seem to be places where other people do things.
Turkey
As Dr. Augusta McMahon noted, Turkey is both a 'source country' and a '"transit country", a pathway for items from neighbouring source countries of the Middle East travelling towards the purchasing countries of Europe'(3), but to discuss the illicit antiquities trade in Turkey and (particularly northern) Cyprus, it is necessary to discuss it within the wider criminal and political economy, understanding its relationships with the mess of conflicts within Turkey and Cyprus; it is necessary to follow the heroin that the antiquities are traded and trafficked with.
PKK-TSK
Although the war between the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers' Party)) and the TSK (Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri (Turkish Armed Forces)) (background) has been less bloody since the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, one way or another, it has continued. 'Peace', after all, 'could be bad for business.' Government and governors, military, police and gendarmerie all backed the use of gangs, private armies and Village Guards (Köy Korucuları), paid for with secret government funds and heroin trafficking, which the Turkish military and Turkish NATO officers were directly involved in.
PKK-Turkish Hizbullah
Before they pulled out of excavations in the South-East (at the height of the war between the PKK and the TSK), archaeologists observed 'the conflict between fundamentalist Muslim and leftist Kurdish groups' (bakground); it was another part of the same problem. There was suspicion that the Turkish state had turned a blind eye to, or that its security forces had colluded with, Turkish Hizbullah. Yet former Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller freely admitted that they had; the weapons were from 'Kintex, a Sofia-based, state-controlled import-export firm', in an arms-for-drugs deal, where '[t]he weapons were distributed to village guards -- some of whom later joined Hizbullah'. [That final quotation is a summary translation of Tuncay Özkan's original Turkish-language article, "Susurluk-Batman hattı".](4)
Turkish ex-military and 'maybe' serving secret service staff trained Mujahideen to go to Chechnya at a (Grey Wolves splinter group) Nizamı Alem (Universal Order) camp in Turkey and '[a]rms purchased by Iran and Turkey [and].... Mojahedin fighters were also flown in [to Bosnia by the US, Turkey and Iran]'; moreover, '"... some of these people who went to fight Russians or Serbs were indoctrinated against infidels" and returned to Turkey as cell leaders for Al Qaeda'. Furthermore, Turkish Mujahideen trained and fought alongside the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) (Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës (UÇK)).
PKK-KLA
One of the Kosovo War's many conflicts was the proxy war between the Turkish-supplied KLA and the Russian-armed PKK fighting over the fundraising drug and prostitution rackets (background). While Serbia had its paramilitary Red Berets and the allied Zemun Gang (and others since its disruption) and the Red Berets, the Zemun Gang and the Serb Volunteer Guard all funded their activities by smuggling heroin, cigarettes, etc., Serbian criminologist Dobrivoje Radovanović (2003: 87) judged that 'a "Serbian mafia" per se does not exist', rather that 'Serbia is home to Albanian, Chinese, and Russian organized crime groups'.
The KLA was used by, but now works with, the Turkish Grey Wolves to smuggle and distribute drugs, guns, people, 'any type of unregistered and illegal commercial activities', presumably, then, to traffic and trade in illicit antiquities, too. It is the conflict directly between the PKK and the Grey Wolves that is central to the illicit antiquities trade through Cyprus.
PKK-Grey Wolves
Kendal Nezan relayed that, a decade ago, Turkish (opium processing and) heroin trafficking was already worth tens of billions of dollars; he also noted that the dominant operation was 'run by mafia groups closely controlled by the MIT [Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı (National Intelligence Organization)]', who paid those mafia groups - the Grey Wolves - with heroin (background). Most of the Taliban and al-Qaeda's opium is actually processed into heroin and trafficked by the deep states of the US' allies, Turkey and Kosovo, while their money is laundered in both northern and southern Cyprus.
While the Turkish deep state and the PKK sometimes even use the same opium processing plants in Turkey, the PKK produce their own heroin in Azerbaijan and elsewhere, as well as smuggling heroin for Lebanese Hezbollah (as do the Grey Wolves), has a presence in Cyprus (which will be discussed later) and other transit and market countries, like Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Martin A. Lee documented that 'the Grey Wolves [Bozkurtlar], a neo-fascist terrorist group' worked with and for the Turkish mafia and the Turkish intelligence services, for whom they 'carried NATO military equipment to the Middle East and returned with loads of heroin'; the Global Drugs Monitor also noted that, 'financed by heroin trafficking, [it] is protected by high-level figures within the Turkish government who use the Gray Wolves to eliminate their political enemies, not only in Turkey but also abroad'.
Smuggling drugs and antiquities through Turkey
Like others, including Cyprus and Greece, Turkey has affirmed that the illicit antiquities trade has a 'sinister link to drugs and money laundering'. Özgen Acar confirmed the link between 'drug [heroin] and antiquity smuggling' in the international trade (affirmed in the previous post on the illicit antiquities trade) and the threat of kidnap or worse for those who investigate it.
Art and antiquities gallery owner Fuat Üzülmez joined Mafioso "Blind Edip" Telli and his heroin-and-antiquities smuggling brother Nevzat Telli to smuggle antiquities from Turkey and it must be assumed that the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation's control over the heroin trade extends to control over the attached illicit antiquities trade.
While American soldiers and other foreign troops have been stealing and smuggling Iraqi artefacts (as souvenirs or for sale), soldiers and staff at İncirlik, the American military base in Turkey, used for the war in Iraq,
Turkish deep state-backed Turkish Hizbullah are separate from, but do work with, or for, Lebanese Hizbullah; Jason Burke wisely warned against confusing al-Qaeda and "al-Qaeda-ist" militants, but Turkish al-Qaeda is a splinter cell of al Qaeda, which recruited from Turkish Hezbollah and Mujahideen. Realistically, given al-Qaida-associated Islamic Jihad and Lebanese Hezbollah control up to 90% of the illicit antiquities trade in the Middle East, all of these affiliates and allies must also be involved in the trade, either passively "taxing" it, or actively smuggling and dealing in antiquities.
Cyprus
The history and politics of Cyprus are more than complex, with class and other social, economic and political conflicts within and between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities tangled up in conflicts within and between Greek and Turkish deep states, Greece and Turkey and between the Great Powers of Britain, America and Russia, which sometimes fell into anarchy - and the situation in the North is even more rezalet than it is in the South.
Northern Cyprus
Former Vice President of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC (KKTC (Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti))) Mustafa Akıncı has stated that:
The [KKTC (TRNC)] is in theory independent but, concretely, it is run from Turkey through the civil and military bureaucracy.... In the KKTC there is no security force under the orders of the civil authorities. The police is linked to the Security Forces Command, the Commander [in] Chief of which is just a general landed on us from Turkey.... The police acts in accordance with the wishes of the military authorities....On top of this, Avrupa spoke of 'an order... given to the customs officials from the Security people: No question should be asked to people coming in'; their concern was 'people coming with no money at all... robbing or stealing in Famagusta and Kyrenia, because they do not have money... to buy a sandwich', but, equally, a lack of border controls would make it far easier for people who do have money to traffic heroin and antiquities.
When I said to our government partner, Dervis Eroglu, who was, moreover, President of the National Union Party and Prime Minister, "We all need democracy. Today it's me - tomorrow it will be you" - he retorted: "I can't punch with my fists against a knife". This is how the Prime Minister explained that he couldn't oppose the military authorities.
The Turkish Cypriot Deep State
The Turkish Deep State has penetrated northern Cyprus so deeply that conflicts within Turkey - between the Grey Wolves and the PKK, etc. - have been internalised in northern Cyprus (background); the same government, police, military and paramilitary forces are involved(1), although the Turkish Armed Forces in Cyprus are called the Turkish Cypriot Peace Forces and have a local auxiliary, the Turkish Cypriot Security Forces, which have their own auxiliary, the Civil Defence Organisation; there are also innumerable Turkish Cypriot non-non-governmental organizations (NNGOs). When the deep state cannot establish effective Turkish Cypriot proxy organisations, it uses existing Turkish groups, like acting Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller exported 3,000 neo-Nazi Grey Wolves/Idealist Hearths activists to northern Cyprus to clash with Greek Cypriot nationalists.(2)
Aydın Dikmen
While so-called 'official archaeologist to the occupying force' Aydın Dikmen is better known for stealing mosaics from northern Cyprus, he was also a drug smuggler. With Turkey's heroin trade so 'closely controlled' by its National Intelligence Organisation and Turkish army commanders in northern Cyprus both looting Greek Cypriot Orthodox churches themselves and helping heroin-and-antiquities smuggler Aydın Dikmen (and undoubtedly others) to loot and smuggle the antiquities, it is clear that much of the illicit antiquities trade both in and through northern Cyprus is a deep state operation; still, Dikmen's confirmed work with Turkish military commanders is not the most robust evidence of the involvement of the deep state (rather than corrupt individuals within the state apparatus).
Kutlu Adalı and Abdullah Çatlı
Although it was unproved, the European Court of Human Rights (2005: 4-5) recorded journalist Kutlu Adalı's wife İlkay's allegation that he was murdered by members of the Civil Defence Organisation, because he had accused them of emptying a tomb in the Monastery of St. Barnabas (of '[buried] treasure of war', 'the jewellery gathered from the residences of the fleeing Greek Cypriots'); Amnesty International noted an anonymous tip-off to Kıbrıs that the Grey Wolves-allied Turkish Revenge Brigade (Türk İntikam Tugayı (TİT)) was responsible.
In fact, one of the few certainties in the case is that the same Uzi killed Kutlu Adalı and Ömer Lütfü Topal, who owned the Jasmine Court Hotel and Casino in Kyrenia that Çatlı stayed in when Kutlu Adalı was murdered on the 6th of July 1996 and who was killed by Çatlı three weeks later, on the 28th of July 1996, possibly for laundering money for Chechen mafia, Russian mafia and the PKK. 'It is alleged that Abdullah Catli (code named Mehmet Ozbay)... [was] the hit-man who pulled the trigger in Omer Lutfi [sic] Topal['s] murder and that [the] same UZI brand weapon was us[ed] in that murder and Kutlu Adali's murder.'
Former General Directorate of Security chief and then Turkish Interior Minister Mehmet Ağar authorised Abdullah Çatlı's gun license and ordered the Israeli weapons, which were supplied to Abdullah Çatlı by former National Intelligence Organisation official and convicted deep state actor Korkut Eken and arms dealer and smuggler Ertaç Tinar (who also supplied the weapons that somehow ended up in the hands of Turkish Hezbollah). Yet the deep state is even more directly involved in the illicit trade in cultural property than this.
In 2006, Turkish Cypriot police arrested 'one of the foremost names of TMT [Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı (Turkish Resistance Organisation)]', 'the deep state's arm in the TRNC [derin devlet'in KKTC'deki kolu]', former Turkish Resistance Organisation fighter and National Intelligence Organisation (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı (MİT)) officer "Tremeşeli" Mehmet Ali İlkman, who had hundreds of antiquities, two shotguns and ammunition and also arrested apparently antiquities collecting student Zeki Sezener; in 2008, İlkman was again arrested with antiquities, on that occasion with "Gavur" Ali Yaşar Piro and Tolga Kanara, all of them evidently '[w]ell-known names in the smuggling of antiquities'.
Southern Cyprus
I have not seen any evidence of its involvement in the drugs or antiquities trades, so I will not discuss it here, but there is clearly some form of Greek deep state structure.(5) As I noted earlier, with the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.)/Islamic Jihad, Lebanese Hezbollah and the PKK, as well as use by the Tamil Tigers and others, southern Cyprus does seem to be somewhere other people do things; even the Turkish deep state-controlled heroin trade has routes in which Turkish Cypriot drug traffickers smuggle heroin through southern Cyprus into Europe.
Papadopoulos and Milošević
Criminal structures within the Greek state were, however, made visible by the joint work of Greek Intelligence Services and Greek neo-Nazi paramilitaries with Bosnian Serb nationalist paramilitaries, including Greek intelligence supplying weapons to the Bosnian Serb Army and the Greek Volunteer Guard taking part in the Srebrenica massacre.(5)
Just before the United Nations imposed an arms embargo upon Serb nationalist Slobodan Milošević's regime during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army was able to buy arms from Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias through Greek Cypriot front companies. Lebanese militias also smuggle antiquities through Cyprus, so this was likely one of the routes that those antiquities took from the Middle East to Europe.
After the UN imposed financial sanctions upon Milošević's regime, the Greek Cypriot government allowed Serbian front companies to bypass them and fund the regime and its wars and, facilitated by various state and private actors, including later Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos, to buy weapons to fight them with; billions of dollars - possibly $4b - were spent enabling the regime and enriching its élite.
Green Shield and Saddam Hussein
When the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq, Iraqi companies smuggled and laundered oil through Iranian companies registered in Cyprus; when the United Nations implemented the Oil-for-Food Programme, its Armenian Cypriot director Benon Sevan (now in Cyprus, safe from extradition) allegedly (received money when he) solicited deals for one of the front companies (based, incorporated into or holding bank accounts in tax haven Cyprus) that paid illegal surcharges to the Ba'athist regime.
Saddam Hussein used the money from smuggled oil and surcharges to buy weapons, including conventional weapons from Cypriot companies and 'gray arms broker[s]' like Green Shield. The Russian mafia both sold arms to Iraq and laundered their profits from Iraq through Cyprus, while Serbian enterprises in Cyprus smuggled oil into Serbia through Greece; the Russian mafia are also known to smuggle (Russian) antiquities, so again, antiquities probably left the Middle East the way weapons entered it, through Cyprus.
Smuggling drugs and antiquities through southern Cyprus
There are some connections between the drugs and antiquities trades in Cyprus. In 2004, for example, the Greek Cypriot police's drug squad (YKAN) searched the house of Antonis Demetriou, the brother of the Bishop of Paphos, for drugs, but found antiquities; then, in 2008, they searched two cars for drugs, but again found antiquities, that time arresting three men (including one theologian from Paphos); however, it appears that much of the dual drugs-and-antiquities trade through southern Cyprus is controlled by non-Cypriot organisations.
The illicit antiquities trade through Cyprus does not necessarily pass through northern Cyprus first, or even at all; artefacts may be 'routed via Tripoli [Lebanon], Larnaca (Cyprus) and Antwerp [Belgium]', for example; in the particular case linked to, nothing was ever proved and, if it had been, it might have involved only a small group of "independent" dealers and collectors. Nonetheless, both the Grey Wolves (or Turkish Cypriot drug traffickers) and the PKK do smuggle heroin through southern Cyprus into (antiquities) market countries and both receive their heroin from antiquities-smuggling organisations.
PKK heroin trafficking
As I discussed (in a little more detail) in a previous post on the illicit antiquities trade, because of the structure of the arms trade, the PKK must cooperate with the Russian mafia and, because of the structure of the heroin trade, the Russian mafia must cooperate with the PKK; the Russian mafia also smuggles Afghan antiquities so, presumably, the Russian mafia must also cooperate with the PKK on antiquities smuggling.
The PKK does not merely have a presence in southern Cyprus, as it does in so many places; the PKK has friends in southern Cyprus, including the Cyprus Kurdistan Solidarity Committee, Greek Cypriot members of which provided false passports for PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan; furthermore, as I've noted before, the PKK collaborates with Lebanese Hizbullah.
Lebanese Hizbullah heroin trafficking
Given Cyprus was central to Lebanese drug dealing before, it is probably central to the renewed Lebanese trade in cannabis and heroin, too (certainly, the PKK smuggles heroin for Lebanese Hezbollah directly into and out of southern Cyprus or through Greece); that would make sense, as, enabled by provision of flags of convenience, the Tamil Tigers also use both Lebanon and Cyprus (and Turkey) for the heroin and arms trades.
If Lebanese Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad do control (anywhere near as much as) 90% of Middle Eastern antiquities smuggling, then, as well as a lot of antiquities being carried through Turkey and along the Balkan Route into Europe by both the Turkish Grey Wolves and the Kurdish PKK, a lot of antiquities must be being carried through southern Cyprus and into Europe by Lebanese Hizbullah, the PKK and the Russian mafia.
Russian mafia people trafficking
The Russian mafia also have a position in the 'thriving sex trade' in Cyprus, where the enslavement and trafficking of thousands of women every year earns their masters tens of millions of dollars. I note that because this vile trade is run by the same smugglers on the same routes as drug trafficking - and so antiquities trading - so it reaffirms that there are direct trafficking routes through southern Cyprus; when the Russian mafia does smuggle Afghan antiquities, either itself or with the PKK, it must often smuggle them through southern Cyprus.
The illicit trade in antiquities through Cyprus
It was when I heard the accusation that the Civil Defence Organisation murdered Kutlu Adalı because he had publicised their "excavations" of "treasure" that I re-examined the illicit trade in cultural property in Cyprus. It was when I learned that Abdullah Çatlı was on "state business" when he destroyed an Armenian Genocide memorial in Paris that I began to reconstruct the cyclical relationship between the Cyprus Conflict, the illicit antiquities trade through Cyprus and the destruction of cultural heritage in Cyprus.
The Turkish Grey Wolves' leader Abdullah Çatlı performed 'services for the Turkish state', including 'attacks on Armenian interests' and on the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) (terrorists campaigning for Turkish recognition of the Armenian Genocide) and the bombing of the Armenian Genocide Memorial at Alfortville in Paris on the 3rd of May 1984; the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation paid Çatlı with heroin and he and the Grey Wolves funded their activities by processing opium and trafficking and dealing heroin. Evidently, he was also active in Cyprus and it is highly possible that Abdullah Çatlı killed Kutlu Adalı.
Although many things affected it, there was a correlation between poverty and insecurity, and looting of archaeological sites in Cyprus, marked during World War II. Michael Jansen noted that 'there was a brisk trade in illicitly excavated antiquities and stolen icons taken from the Turkish-Cypriot enclaves'; Sophocles Hadjisavvas noted that, between 1964 and 1973, 'the smuggling of antiquities was so intense that there was even close collaboration between Turkish [Cypriot] looters and Greek [Cypriot] mediators and collectors' and Michel van Rijn (1993: 27) showed that this collaboration between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots continued after 1974.
The illicit antiquities trade through Cyprus has changed, though; with the Lebanese, Afghan and Iraqi militants' takeover of the looting and trading in illicit antiquities in source countries and Russian and Kurdish, Turkish and Kosovo Albanian deep states' takeover of the trafficking and trading of illicit antiquities in transit and market countries, the trade has not only been "professionalised", but industrialised.
Just as the war between the Turkish Armed Forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party necessitated trafficking of heroin and antiquities, so the Greek and Turkish deep states' war over Cyprus before it must have done too, as indicated by the antiquities smuggling of Turkish military partner Aydın Dikmen and former Turkish Resistance Organisation fighter and National Intelligence Organisation officer Mehmet Ali İlkman.
Looting and trading in antiquities funds the occupation and repression of northern Cyprus and the destruction of its cultural heritage, and the destruction of its cultural heritage is an instrument of its repression (as it was when TMT bombed Bayraktar Mosque and blamed EOKA, then assassinated those who exposed the plot to incite violence) and of the perpetuation of its occupation, which makes it easier for the Turkish and Kurdish deep states to continue to fund their war.
Because of the level of gun-running, drug-smuggling and money laundering, Greek Cypriot Intelligence Services officials judged that 'economic interests had become so huge as to constitute a potential obstacle to efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem'. The development and maintenance of Greek, Turkish, Kurdish and Cypriot deep states makes clear, however, that it is only through the resolution of the Kurdish Question and the Cyprus Problem that we will be able to begin to fight the illicit trade in drugs and antiquities.
Art Newspaper. 1997: "Uncle of King Hussein offered Dead Sea scroll to US". Art Newspaper, Number 69, 1-2.
Elia, R J. 1993: "A seductive and troubling work". Archaeology, Volume 46, Number 1, 64-69.
Politis, K D. 1994: "Biblical Zoar: The looting of an ancient site". Minerva, Volume 5, Number 6, 12-15.
Politis, K D. 2001: "Dealing with the dealers and tomb robbers: The realities of the archaeology of the Ghor es-Safi in Jordan". In Brodie, N and Tubb, K W, (Eds.). Illicit antiquities: The theft of culture and the extinction of archaeology, 257-267. London: Routledge.
- The militias comprise the Provisional Village Guards (Geçiçi Köy Korucuları (GKK)), while the militaries consist of the Turkish Armed Forces (Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri (TSK)), the Turkish Cypriot Peace Forces (Kıbrıs Türk Barış Kuvvetleri (KTBK)) - the Turkish Armed Forces in Cyprus - and the Turkish Cypriot Security Forces (Kıbrıs Türk Güvenlik Kuvvetleri Komutanlığı (GKK)).
Security organizations include the National Intelligence Organisation (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı (MİT)), the Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Team (Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele Timi (JİTEM)) (the existence of which retired General Veli Küçük has confirmed) and Special Warfare Units (Özel Harp Birlikleri), also known as Special Teams (Özel Timler), Special Action Teams (Özel Hareket Timleri) or Special Forces (Özel Kuvvetleri).
The ultranationalist terrorists are the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (MHP)) youth wing - the Idealist Hearths (Ülkü Ocakları (ÜO)) activists - and the secularist Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar) and their Islamist splinter group Universal Order (Nizamı Alem; Turkish Hezbollah and Turkish al Qaeda are less well-connected, but are connected nonetheless.
There are many nationalist, racist or otherwise right-wing extremist groups, like the Kemalist Atatürk Thought Association (Atatürk Düşünce Derneği (ADD)), the Turkish Cypriot Peace Forces Fighters' Association (Kıbrıs Türk Barış Kuvvetleri Mücahitler Derneği (KTBKMD)), the Turkish Resistance Organisation Association (Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı Derneği (TMT.D./TMTD)) and the TRNC Protection and Preservation Association (KKTC'yi Koruma ve Yaşatma Derneği (KKTCKYD/KYD)).
- While tens of thousands vote for the ultranationalist Front Line (Proti Grammi [Πρότη Γράμμη]) and Greek Front (Elliniko Metopo [Ελληνικό Μέτωπο]) and hundreds of thousands vote for the ultranationalist Popular Orthodox Rally/People's Orthodox Alarm (Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos (LA.O.S. [LAOS]) [Λαϊκός Ορθόδοξος Συναγερμός (ΛΑ.Ο.Σ. [ΛΑΟΣ])]), the largest Hellenist neo-Nazi group, Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi [Χρύση Αύγη]), currently has about 300 active members in Greece and a branch or core group of about 28 in Cyprus.
The acting Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller-funded neo-Nazi Grey Wolves/Idealist Hearths, however, were able to export about 3,000 activists to northern Cyprus just for the confrontation in which they killed Greek Cypriot nationalist Tassos Isaac, after the Greek Cypriot police enabled him and other motorcycle hooligans funded by Glafcos Clerides' Greek Cypriot administration and the Orthodox Church of Cyprus to violate the ceasefire lines and the United Nations Buffer Zone. - McMahon also provided a very good example of the way looting and trade destroy the context of artefacts and so destroy the very possibility of knowledge of them. David Gill and Christopher Chippindale demonstrated how trade encourages forgery and how both 'corrupt the record' and undermine knowledge. Paul Craddock noted that, if there are too many forgeries and the buyers cannot be confident that they will get authentic artefacts, the market will collapse.
- While most sources say that, despite ideological and practical similarities, Turkish Hizbullah has no relation, no connection with Lebanese Hizbullah (indeed, Lebanese Hizbullah deny that they are connected), even to say that it has no formal links would be inaccurate.
'Ehud Sadan, chief of security at the Israeli embassy in Ankara.... was blown up by a bomb planted under his car. The authorities arrested several members of Turkish Hezbollah, acting under orders from Mr. Mugniyah'. So, at least to some extent, some or all of Turkish Hizbullah's (then and now again) 20,000 members were being directed by Lebanese Shi'ite Haji Imad Fayez Mugniyah, who was a senior officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's paramilitary Quds Force and the leader of the military wing of Lebanese Hezbollah. - I am only including this as a footnote, because I have not found any evidence of their involvement in the drugs or antiquities trades, but I think it is worth summarising the role of Golden Dawn and the Greek Volunteer Guard in the Bosnian war and particularly the Srebrenica massacre, which shows the existence of some deep state structure - and its equality of ferocity of nationalist violence.
During the Bosnian war, Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Radovan Karadžić met then conservative New Democracy Party leader and Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis and (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) PASOK Party leader Andreas Papandreou, at a massive open-air rally organised by the Greek Orthodox Church.
The Church gave blessings to and performed church services with Serb paramilitaries that committed war crimes and, under the subsequent socialist government of Papandreou, the Greek Intelligence Service (ΕΥΠ (Ελληνική Υπηρεσία Πληροφοριών)) and supplied weapons and leaked NATO secrets to the Bosnian Serb paramilitaries, while the Greek Volunteer Guard fed information back to the Greek Intelligence Service. (There was an equivalent relationship between the Turkish intelligence service and the Bosnian Muslim paramilitaries.)
The Nazi salute-giving Greek Volunteer Guard (GVG) (Ελληνικής Εθελοντικής Φρουράς (ΕΕΦ)), set up at the request of Bosnian Serb nationalist military leader Ratko Mladić, fought alongside Bosnian Serb nationalist paramilitaries, took part in the Srebrenica massacre and even raised the Greek flag on the site afterwards, while the Greek media practiced possibly Church-instigated 'self-censorship'; none of the Greek Volunteer Guard has been punished for their role in the act of genocide.
The Greek Antinazi Initiative stated that 'Golden Dawn sent some of its members to join the so-called "Greek Volunteer Guard" to fight on the side of the Serb Chetniks [nationalist paramilitaries]'; there's no information indicating whether or not Greek Cypriot Golden Dawn activists fought.
[Most recently corrected - to record Turkish-American antiquities smuggling through the U.S. air base at İncirlik in Turkey before the invasion of Iraq - on the 24th of September 2008.]
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