## The 11 Turkish journalists who went to the island to cover the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation took a wrong turn and were captured by Greek Cypriots in Küçükkaymaklı.
One of those journalists was Mete Akyol, who had gone on behalf of our newspaper (I was working at Milliyet at the time).
The Greek Cypriot militiamen took the Turkish journalists into a building and made them put their hands against the wall.
Mete Akyol began humming “Memleketim,” a very popular song at the time. When the others joined in, the Greek Cypriots angrily shouted, “Silence!”
Mete said, “You’re going to kill us anyway, so we won’t be quiet.”
The militiamen said, “We’re not going to kill you,” and handed them over to a captain.
Captain Takis Çagaris took the journalists to a school.
The Greek officers there asked Mete Akyol some questions, then put the group in a prison van.
They set off with Captain Takis Çagaris once again at their head, but they didn’t know where they were being taken.
On the way, EOKA blocked their route. A heated argument broke out between the militants and the captain.
They set off again. EOKA blocked their route twice more. The same arguments broke out again, and they set off once more.
They later learned that EOKA militants had told the captain, “Hand the journalists over to us; we’ll kill them.”
Each time, the captain stood his ground, saying, “You’ll have to kill me before you can take them.”
Finally, after facing many dangers, they reached Limassol.
Çagaris handed them over to the colonel on duty at the Limassol Police Headquarters.
Then he hugged Mete Akyol goodbye, saying, “Who knows where or when we’ll meet again.” They spent that night in cells and were released the next day on Klerides’ orders.
\* 37 years later, Captain Takis Çagaris and Mete Akyol met in Istanbul.
These two men, whose fates had been intertwined on the fine line between life and death, embraced warmly when they first met at Atatürk Airport.
There is an interesting story behind their reunion.
Cem Kar, who works in television in Cyprus, is making a documentary called “Unknown Prisoners” about the captives in the 1974 war.
He speaks with many people in Cyprus, then comes to Turkey and finds Akyol.
He tells Akyol that a captain had written a book about Turkish captives and had mentioned him in it.
Mete remembers the captain but can’t recall his name. “Find him for me,” he says.
Cem Kar finds the captain and has him call Mete Akyol.
Mete Akyol describes that moment:
“When I heard Takis’s voice, I was so moved that I couldn’t hold back my tears. Takis started crying too. After that, we began speaking on the phone often. He invited me to Cyprus, and I invited him to Istanbul... In the end, he came.”
We spent the evening at dinner with the two friends. It was an emotional night.
I said to Takis and Mete Akyol: “You won’t find another two peoples in the world whose people, after fighting one another, have come together and embraced 37 years later. What you have experienced shows just how much the Turkish and Greek peoples are alike. If politicians would get out of the way, the Turkish and Greek peoples would embrace just as you have.”
The two of them got up and embraced once more.
As I said, it was an emotional night. After witnessing their reunion, I couldn’t help thinking: “Why are these two countries still not embracing? Why are they still quarrelling instead of sharing the pleasures and happiness of this beautiful region?”
