I. Introduction: From Personal Memory to Public Ethos
15 January marks the anniversary of the death of Rauf Denktaş, the founding President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and a central figure in the Turkish Cypriot community’s struggle for political equality and security. Remembering Denktaş on this date inevitably brings to mind not only his diplomatic and political role but also the way he gave verbal form to the experience of a community that faced protracted uncertainty, violence, and isolation in the second half of the twentieth century.
Among his many recollections, one of the most frequently cited is his reference to a remark attributed to İsmet İnönü – “If you are a Turk, you will endure” – and to his own affirmation, “We are Turks, we endure.” These sentences, simple in form yet dense in implication, have often been treated as a personal motto. However, they can equally be read as a concise expression of a broader ethos of endurance that shaped the attitudes and expectations of many Turkish Cypriots during successive phases of crisis.
This commentary takes that ethos as its starting point. Its dual aim is, first, to reflect on Denktaş’s legacy and the role of endurance in the Turkish Cypriot experience, and second, to connect this notion to questions of intellectual resilience in contemporary Turkish research institutions, including AVİM, which engage with contested issues in the Balkans, the Southern Caucasus, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea.
II. The Turkish Cypriot Experience of Endurance
The Turkish Cypriot experience of the second half of the twentieth century was marked by a succession of crises that severely tested the community’s political, legal, and social resilience. The gradual breakdown of the 1960 constitutional order, escalating intercommunal tensions, episodes of targeted violence, and the erosion of the bi-communal power-sharing arrangements created a setting in which basic security and political representation could no longer be taken for granted. In parallel, the community was increasingly subjected to international isolation and to a growing asymmetry in how its claims and concerns were reflected in external narratives. In this environment, endurance was not an abstract virtue, but a daily requirement for collective survival and self-respect.[1]
Rauf Denktaş’s leadership emerged and took shape within precisely this context of accumulated uncertainty and pressure. His frequently recalled anecdote about İsmet İnönü’s words – “If you are a Turk, you will endure” – and his own affirmation, “We are Turks, we endure,” should thus be understood less as a personal motto and more as a condensed expression of a wider communal stance. The appeal of these sentences lay in their articulation, in simple language, of a determination that many Turkish Cypriots already held: not to relinquish their rights, their status as a political community, or their sense of dignity, despite unfavorable circumstances.[2]
In this setting, “enduring” carried at least three interrelated meanings. First, it meant holding on to legal rights derived from the founding treaties and constitutional arrangements, and insisting that these commitments could not be unilaterally set aside. Second, it meant maintaining political agency and identity under adverse conditions, refusing to accept a position of permanent marginality or dependence. Third, it meant preserving historical continuity and community self-respect by safeguarding memory, institutions, and symbols that affirmed the Turkish Cypriot presence on the island. Together, these dimensions gave the notion of endurance a concrete content that went far beyond rhetorical insistence.[3]
III. Endurance, Law, and Narrative
The dimensions of endurance outlined above were not confined to attitudes or morale; they were anchored in a specific legal framework and articulated through a sustained narrative of rights, status, and presence. On the legal level, Turkish Cypriot insistence on endurance drew its reference points from the founding treaties, the constitutional design of the 1960 Republic, and the guarantees and security arrangements that accompanied this architecture. In moments when these arrangements were eroded or set aside in practice, the appeal to their original terms served to reaffirm that the community’s position was grounded in recognized commitments rather than merely aspirational claims. In this sense, endurance meant repeatedly returning to the legal foundations that had initially acknowledged the Turkish Cypriots as a constituent political partner on the island.[4]
At the same time, endurance operated through narrative channels. Speeches, memoirs, and public recollections, formed a repertoire of symbols that linked everyday hardship to a broader understanding of historical continuity and collective purpose. These narratives translated abstract legal and constitutional arguments into accessible, memorable formulations that could sustain community cohesion under pressure. The legal and narrative dimensions thus reinforced one another: law provided a framework of rights and status, while narrative endowed that framework with meaning, affect, and direction.[5]
Viewed in this light, endurance acquires a distinctly cognitive dimension. It entails insisting on accurate legal terminology, resisting the dilution or distortion of key concepts, and challenging one-sided or selective readings of historical events. This concern is not unique to the Turkish Cypriot context; it also appears in other sensitive debates where legal notions such as “genocide” or “crimes against humanity” can be stretched beyond their established definitions, and where Eurocentric or otherwise selective interpretations of regional history risk marginalizing alternative perspectives. Without losing sight of Denktaş’s specific legacy, the Turkish Cypriot experience therefore illustrates more general questions about how communities use law and narrative together to withstand both material and discursive forms of pressure.[6]
IV. From Political Endurance to Intellectual Resilience
The interaction between law and narrative in the Turkish Cypriot case points to a broader dimension of endurance that extends beyond the political or institutional spheres. It also raises questions about how knowledge is produced, contested, and preserved in environments where historical and legal issues are heavily politicized. In such contexts, an ethos of endurance must necessarily extend to research and public debate. This extension may be described as intellectual resilience: the capacity of scholars and institutions to sustain rigorous inquiry and measured argumentation under conditions that do not always reward nuance or complexity.[7]
Intellectual resilience, in this sense, entails, first and foremost, a commitment to methodological rigor and multi-sourced research, even when the subject matter is controversial or subject to intense external pressures. It implies a readiness to work with archival materials, legal texts, and diverse scholarly contributions, rather than relying on selective evidence that merely confirms pre-existing assumptions. This approach, at the analytical level, mirrors the insistence on legal foundations and historical continuity that characterized the Turkish Cypriot understanding of endurance.[8]
A second component of intellectual resilience is the defence of legal and conceptual precision at a time when frequently used terms are prone to inflation, politicization, or instrumentalization. Just as endurance in the Turkish Cypriot context involved resisting attempts to sideline established treaty rights and constitutional arrangements, intellectual resilience consists in resisting the dilution of key concepts in international law and historical discourse. It requires careful attention to definitions and thresholds, especially in debates where the misuse of terms can have far-reaching political and moral consequences.[9]
Finally, intellectual resilience is defined by temporal continuity. This is reflected in research institutions' willingness to continue producing analyses over extended periods, including periods when particular topics fall out of fashion or become uncomfortable for specific audiences. In this respect, just as communities and leaders endure in the political realm, think tanks and scholarly centres are called upon to survive in the intellectual sphere, maintaining a steady focus on complex regional questions despite shifting discursive climates.
V. AVİM’s Long-Term Engagement with a Wider Region
The notion of intellectual resilience takes concrete institutional form when examined through the work of research centres that focus on regions where historical experience, legal argumentation, and political contestation are closely intertwined. AVİM’s long-term engagement with developments in the Balkans, the Southern Caucasus, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea illustrates such a choice. These are areas where complex imperial legacies, shifting borders, and overlapping claims have produced dense layers of memory and competing narratives, and where contemporary security and cooperation arrangements remain subject to continuous negotiation.[10]
Within this broader geography, Cyprus has been an essential and recurring component of AVİM’s agenda, but never in isolation. Analyses of the island’s status, the Turkish Cypriot experience, and the broader Eastern Mediterranean context have been situated alongside studies of Balkan transitions, Caucasian conflicts, and Black Sea security dynamics. This cumulative body of work reflects an institutional decision to treat these regions not merely as episodic crises, but as enduring laboratories for examining how law, history, and politics interact over time.
In this perspective, AVİM’s institutional endurance can be characterized in three interrelated dimensions. The first is continuity: rather than limiting itself to short-term reactions to high-profile events, the centre has sought to build a sustained archive of commentaries and analyses that follow developments over years and, in some cases, decades. The second is consistency: despite changes in the international agenda, AVİM has maintained a stable commitment to evidence-based, law-sensitive analysis, paying particular attention to treaty frameworks, court decisions, and conceptual clarity in international legal discourse. The third is reflexivity: previous assessments are not treated as fixed positions. Still, they are revisited in the light of new information and shifting regional dynamics, while preserving an underlying analytical coherence.[11]
Seen against this background, the ethos of “endurance” articulated by Denktaş and rooted in the Turkish Cypriot experience finds a parallel in the intellectual practices of institutions that continue to examine contentious regional issues with methodological rigor and historical depth.
VI. Intellectual Endurance in Times of Difficulty
The discussion of endurance at the level of community experience and institutional practice inevitably invites a more explicit reflection on what “times of difficulty” signify for research centres operating in contested regional environments. In such periods, attempts to delegitimize specific perspectives, to narrow the range of acceptable discourse, or to cast doubt on the credibility of particular institutions tend to become more frequent. [12]
For think tanks and scholarly centres, these dynamics give rise to a series of practical and normative challenges. “Times of difficulty” may involve not only political or security crises, but also phases in which specific issues are either heavily politicized or rendered temporarily invisible by shifting international attention. Under these conditions, intellectual endurance requires exactly the kind of commitment outlined above: continuing to address sensitive subjects without bending analysis to prevailing discursive winds.
At the same time, intellectual endurance requires maintaining an internal environment that values careful documentation, multilingual and multi-archival research, and conceptually disciplined debate. This involves accepting that rigorous analysis will, at times, run counter to simplified or one-sided accounts, and that such tension is not a reason to abandon established methodological standards.
VII. Conclusion: “We Endure” as a Call for Sustained Scholarship
Revisited on the anniversary of his passing, Rauf Denktaş’s phrase “We are Turks, we endure” may be read today not only as a political statement shaped by the harsh conditions faced by the Turkish Cypriot community, but also as a broader call for sustained and principled engagement with history, law, and regional politics. His leadership and the experience of the Turkish Cypriots underscore how endurance can defend rights, identity, and historical memory when formal guarantees are weakened, and external narratives become increasingly asymmetric.
The preceding discussion has suggested that this ethos of endurance has an intellectual counterpart. Research institutions such as AVİM, by maintaining long-term, intensive engagement with developments in the Balkans, the Southern Caucasus, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea, give contemporary meaning to endurance in knowledge production. In an era marked by uncertainty and intense competition over information, the combination of historical depth, legal clarity, and intellectual resilience constitutes an essential resource for Türkiye’s broader regional engagement and for the quality of public debate surrounding these complex and often contentious issues.
[1] Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “60th Anniversary of the Defunct ‘Republic of Cyprus,’” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Analysis No. 2020/10, September 30, 2020, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/en/Analiz/60TH-ANNIVERSARY-OF-THE-DEFUNCT-REPUBLIC-OF-CYPRUS ; Tugay Uluçevik, “The Solution Inherent in the Nature of the Cyprus Dispute,” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Blog Commentary, March 16, 2021, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/Blog/THE-SOLUTION-INHERENT-IN-THE-NATURE-OF-THE-CYPRUS-DISPUTE-16-03-2021
[2] Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “50th Anniversary of the Cyprus Peace Operation: What Proposal Did the Greek Side Make to Rauf Denktaş Immediately after the Operation?” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Analysis No. 2024/11, July 25, 2024, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/en/Analiz/50TH-ANNIVERSARY-OF-THE-CYPRUS-PEACE-OPERATION-WHAT-PROPOSAL-DID-THE-GREEK-SIDE-MAKE-TO-RAUF-DENKTAS-IMMEDIATELY-AFTER-THE-OPERATION ; Tugay Uluçevik, “Millî Kahraman Rauf R. Denktaş,” Avrasya İncelemeleri Merkezi (AVİM), Blog, January 18, 2024, accessed January 18, 2012, https://avim.org.tr/Blog/MILLI-KAHRAMAN-Rauf-R-DENKTAS
[3] Sean Patrick Smith, “Is an Alternative for Turkish Cypriots on the Cards?” AVİM Blog, November 6, 2017, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/Blog/IS-AN-ALTERNATIVE-FOR-TURKISH-CYPRIOTS-ON-THE-CARDS ; Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), “Cyprus Talks in Geneva: A Geopolitical Stalemate amid Deepening Divides,” AVİM Bulletin, March 12, 2025, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/en/Bulten/CYPRUS-TALKS-IN-GENEVA-A-GEOPOLITICAL-STALEMATE-AMID-DEEPENING-DIVIDES
[4] Seyda Nur OSMANLI, “China’s Taiwan Policy and Approach to the Cyprus Question,” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Analysis No. 2025/04, April 11, 2023, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/en/Analiz/CHINA-S-TAIWAN-POLICY-AND-APPROACH-TO-THE-CYPRUS-QUESTION ; Kemal Köprülü, “A New Chapter: Time for Cooperation in Cyprus,” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Policy Paper, 2010, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/public/images/uploads/files/kemal%20koprulu.pdf ; Şakir Fakılı, “How Effective Are UN Missions? The Case of a Controversial UNFICYP Resolution,” AVİM Blog, October 16, 2023, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/Blog/HOW-EFFECTIVE-ARE-UN-MISSIONS-THE-CASE-OF-A-CONTROVERSIAL-UNFICYP-RESOLUTION-16-10-2023
[5] Mehmet Perinçek, “Exclusive Interview with Prime Minister of TRNC: ‘The Federal Solution Cannot Go beyond a Dream’ – ‘United World International’ as a New Platform,” AVİM Blog, July 22, 2020, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/public/Blog/EXCLUSIVE-INTERVIEW-WITH-PRIME-MINISTER-OF-TRNC-THE-FEDERAL-SOLUTION-CANNOT-GO-BEYOND-A-DREAM-UNITED-WORLD-20-07-2020
[6] Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “Constructive Eurasianism and Past Reflections,” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Commentary No. 2025/40, September 22, 2025, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/en/Yorum/CONSTRUCTIVE-EURASIANISM-AND-PAST-REFLECTIONS ; Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “Türkiye Proudly Celebrating the Centennial of the Signing of the Lausanne Peace Treaty,” AVİM Commentary No. 2023/21, July 2023, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/public/en/Yorum/TURKIYE-PROUDLY-CELEBRATING-THE-CENTENNIAL-OF-THE-SIGNING-OF-THE-LAUSANNE-PEACE-TREATY ; Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “Concerted Efforts to Downplay the Milestones of the Republic of Türkiye and Turkish History,” ,” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM)/ Commentary, April 17, 2025, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/public/en/Analiz/CONCERTED-EFFORTS-TO-DOWNPLAY-THE-MILESTONES-OF-THE-REPUBLIC-OF-TURKIYE-AND-TURKISH-HISTORY
[7] Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “CYCLE OF DESTABILIZATION AND RESTABILIZATION: IMPACTS ON BALKAN DEMOCRACIES,” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Analysis No. 2024/21, December 20, 2024, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/en/Analiz/CYCLE-OF-DESTABILIZATION-AND-RESTABILIZATION-IMPACTS-ON-BALKAN-DEMOCRACIES
[8] Mehmet Oğuzhan Tulun, “The 2019 Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul Election Guideline and Related Disputes,” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Analysis No. 2019/5, November 21, 2019, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/en/Analiz/THE-2019-ARMENIAN-PATRIARCH-OF-ISTANBUL-ELECTION-GUIDELINE-AND-RELATED-DISPUTES
[9] Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), “AVİM – About Us / Mission Statement,” AVİM Institutional Page, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/en/Menu/About-Us
[10] Review of Armenian Studies, no. 31 (2015), Editorial Note and articles, Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/tr/Dergi/Review-Of-Armenian-Studies/31
[11] Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun, “The Deep Wound of the Bosniak Nation, Balkans, and Europe: The Srebrenica Genocide,” Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), Analysis No. 2019/12, July 11, 2019, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/public/en/Analiz/THE-DEEP-WOUND-OF-THE-BOSNIAK-NATION-BALKANS-AND-EUROPE-THE-SREBRENICA-GENOCIDE.
[12] Uluslararası Suçlar ve Tarih / International Crimes and History, no. 25 (2024), Editorial Note and articles, Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM), accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/tr/Dergi/Uluslararasi-Suclar-ve-Tarih-International-Crimes-and-History/25 ; Gözde Kılıç Yaşın, “Soykırım Hukukunun Evrimi: Bosna Savaşının Rolü Üzerine Bir İnceleme / The Evolution of Genocide Law: An Examination of the Role of the Bosnian War,” Uluslararası Suçlar ve Tarih / International Crimes and History 25 (2024): 27–71, accessed January 15, 2026, https://avim.org.tr/tr/Dergi/Uluslararasi-Suclar-ve-Tarih-International-Crimes-and-History/25 .