NICOSIA — Three days ahead of the July 20 anniversary of the start of a 1974 invasion of Cyprus, where it still occupies the northern third of the island, Turkey's National Defense Ministry posted photos boasting about a peace operation

Four shots were tweeted showing Turkish troops coming off a landing craft sloshing through water to get onto a beachhead as the state-run Anadolu News Agency said it was a “large-scale military intervention to protect Turkish Cypriots from the violence that struck the island in 1974.”

“Turkey's military intervention as a guarantor power in 1974 had stopped years-long persecution and violence against Turkish Cypriots by ultra-nationalist Greek Cypriots,” the news agency said as Turkey denies it was an invasion the same way it has denied committing any genocides.

https://twitter.com/tcsavunma/status/1283741085563604992

Turkey said the operation in 1974 was done because of what it said was a coup on Cyprus ordered by the military Junta in Greece and staged by the Cypriot National Guard along with EOKA-B, a Greek-Cypriot paramilitary organization.

The aim, said Turkey was the union (enosis) of Cyprus with Greece.