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| 1974
Greek Coup d'etat & Turkish Intervention |
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Archbishopric
ruins: shortly after its takeover by the Greek coup
forces |
After 1967 some
hopes arose that a compromise on separate municipalities could
be achieved in negotiations between Glafcos Clerides and Rauf
Denktash and certainly agreement came close, but the Makarios
government could not accept de jure separateness, which would
have denied the principle of the unitary, if bi-communal, state.
Inter-communal strife was also overshadowed during this period
by a serious rift on the Greek side, between Makarios and the
enosist National Front supported by the Greek junta. Makarios
had now become an obstacle to enosis. An attempt was made on his
life, and Grivas returned in 1971 to head a new organisation,
EOKA-B, with Makarios, rather than the Turkish-Cypriots, in its
sight.
Makarios was told from Athens to dismiss his foreign
minister and to regard Athens as the National Centre. Makarios
rallied supporters successfully against attempts to remove him.
He was still popular in Cyprus.
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President
Makarios flees the island upon the coup by Greek
soldiers
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Matters became
worse when a new junta came to power in September 1973, and
there was less relief from rightist pressure than might have
been expected when Grivas died suddenly in January 1974. The
pressure mounted until a coup in July 1974 led by a `hammer of
the Turks' Nicos Sampson, overthrew Makarios, who managed to
flee the country via a British base. For Turkey this raised the
spectre of Greek control of Cyprus. [Later, in his address to
the UN Security Council, Makarios called the Greek attempts as
the invasion of the island by
Greece].
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| Turkish
Intervention |
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Turkish
forces landing in Cyprus |
The Turkish
government therefore now demanded that Greece should dismiss
Sampson, withdraw all Greek officers from the island and respect
the island's independence. The junta prevaricated. For the
United States, Kissinger did not seem to be greatly disturbed by
the Sampson coup and looked as if he could accept enosis.
Turkish Prime Minister Ecevit's assertiveness in foreign policy,
reinforced by his junior coalition partner strongly inclined the
Turks to intervene. The British were invited to participate in
military operations, under the Treaty of Guarantee, but
declined. The American envoy Joseph Sisco tried unsuccessfully
to persuade the Greek junta to accept Ecevit's conditions for a
Cyprus settlement, which included Turkish-Cypriot control of a
coastal region in the north and negotiations for a federal
solution. The Soviet Union stood aside not wanting to see
enosis, which would strengthen NATO and weaken the left in
Cyprus.
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| Turkish paratroopers landing in Cyprus |
Turkey
intervened on 20 July 1974, having the right to do so
unilaterally as concerted action had not proved possible. Under
the 1960 Treaty, Turkey's sole object could be to re-establish
the state of affairs guaranteed by the basic articles of the
1960 Constitution. The coup d'etat was of course ipso facto
unconstitutional and was said by Makarios himself to be an
attempt to extend Greek dictatorship to the island. The Turkish
intervention was first welcomed by the world generally; it led
to the overthrow of the military regime in Athens and of Sampson
in Cyprus.
Launched with
relatively few troops, the Turkish landing had limited success
at first, and resulted everywhere on the island in the
occupation of Turkish-Cypriot enclaves by the Greek forces.
After securing a more or less satisfactory bridgehead Turkish
forces agreed to a cease-fire on 23 July 1974. The same day
civilian government under Karamanlis took office in Athens, the
day the Sampson coup collapsed. Glafcos Clerides became the
Acting President in absence still of Makarios.
A conference of
the guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and Britain, met in Geneva
on 25 July. Meanwhile Turkish troops did not refrain from
extending their positions, as more Turkish-Cypriot enclaves were
occupied by Greek forces. A new cease-fire line was agreed. On
30 July the powers agreed that the withdrawal of Turkish troops
from the island should be linked to a `just and lasting
settlement acceptable to all parties concerned'. The declaration
also spoke of `two autonomous administrations -that of
Greek-Cypriot community and that of the Turkish-Cypriot
community'.
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| Division
of the island |
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Landing
of the Turkish solidier in Cyprus, July 1974
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At the second
Geneva Conference on 9 August, Turkey pressed for a federal
solution to the problem against stiffening Greek resistance.
Whilst Turkish Cypriots wanted a bi-zonal federation, Turkey,
under American advice, submitted a cantonal plan involving
separation of Turkish-Cypriot areas from one another. For
security reasons Turkish-Cypriots did not favour cantons. Each
plan embraced about thirty-four per cent of the territory.
These plans
were presented to the conference on 13 August by the Turkish
Foreign Minister, Turan Güneş. Clerides wanted thirty-six to
forty-eight hours to consider the plans, but Güneş
demanded an
immediate response. This was regarded as unreasonable by the
Greeks, the British and the Americans who were in close
consultation. Nevertheless, the next day, the Turkish forces
extended their control to some 36 per cent of the island. they
were afraid that delay would turn international opinion strongly
against them if Greek spoiling tactics were given a chance and
they were determined to come to the rescue of greatly threatened
Turkish Cypriots whose enclaves were still occupied by Greek
forces. Up to 160,000 Greek-Cypriots went to South when the
fighting started. Some 50,000 Turkish-Cypriots later (1975)
moved to the North.
 Turkey's
international reputation suffered as a result of the precipitate
move of the Turkish military to extend control to a third of the
island. The British Prime Minister regarded the Turkish
ultimatum as unreasonable since it was presented without
allowing adequate time for study. In Greek eyes the Turkish
proposals were submitted in the full awareness that the Greek
side could not accept them and reflected the Turkish desire for
a military base in Cyprus. The Greek side has gone some way in
their proposals by recognising Turkish `groups' of villages and
Turkish administrative `areas'. But they stressed that the
constitutional order of Cyprus should retain its bi-communal
character based on the co-existence of the Greek and Turkish
communities within the framework of a sovereign, independent and
integral republic. Essentially the Turkish side's proposals were
for geographic consolidation and separation and for a much
larger measure of autonomy for that area, or those areas, than
the Greek side could envisage.
History has
bequeathed to Cyprus a legacy of strife, in which the years from
1960 to 1974 have a special place. It has aptly been observed
that the Turkish-Cypriots cannot forget those years and that the
Greek- Cypriots cannot remember them [quoted from Reddaway,
1990, "Odi et Amo: Vignettes of an Affair with
Cyprus", p.83, his source being an unnamed diplomat].
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| References:
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- From: C.H.
Dodd, (1993), `Cyprus: A Historical Introduction', in C.H.
Dodd (ed.), "The Political, Social, and Economic
Development of Northern Cyprus", Eothen Press,
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England.
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Chronological
History |
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