Cyprus Introduction
Figure 1. Administration Divisions, 1991
THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS came into being on August 16,
1960. The
reluctant republic, as it has often been termed, was seen
as a
necessary compromise by Greek Cypriots and Turkish
Cypriots, the
two peoples who would live within it, and the three
foreign powers
who had been parties to its creation. Greek Cypriots
preferred
enosis, that is, the union of their island with the Greek
motherland, rather than the creation of an independent
state.
Turkish Cypriots preferred that the island remain under
British
rule as it had been since 1878. If British governance were
not
possible, many Turkish Cypriots favored partition, or
taksim, of the island and the union of the parts of
the
island in which they lived with Turkey--their ethnic
motherland.
Greece, for its part, preferred that enosis be achieved
once again
and that Cyprus, like a number of other islands, be united
with the
Hellenic motherland. Turkey's principal desire was that
Cyprus not
come under Greek control and be yet another island off the
Turkish
coast from which it could be attacked by its traditional
enemy.
Britain would have preferred a more measured cessation of
its rule
of the island, but the armed insurrection during the
second half of
the 1950s made the creation of an independent Cypriot
republic seem
a way out of a difficult situation. In addition, Britain's
military
needs could be met by arranging for bases on the island,
rather
than keeping the island of Cyprus itself as a base.
Negotiations between the Greek and Turkish foreign
ministers in
late 1958 and early 1959 resulted in three treaties that
met to
some degree the desires and needs of Greece, Turkey, and
Britain.
Representatives of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot
communities signed the treaties, but without enthusiasm.
The three
treaties--the Treaty of Guarantee, the Treaty of Alliance,
and the
Treaty of Establishment--went into effect on August 16,
1960.
The Treaty of Guarantee provides that Greece, Turkey,
and
Britain will ensure the independence and sovereignty of
the
Republic of Cyprus. It bans political or economic union of
the
republic with any foreign state and bans activities that
would lead
to such unions. Forty-eight of the basic articles of the
constitution were incorporated into the Treaty of
Guarantee, and
the treaty's signatories were pledged to uphold the "state
of
affairs" established by the constitution. Article IV of
the treaty
states that if this "state of affairs" is endangered or
altered,
Greece, Turkey, and Britain are obliged to consult
together and act
to restore it. If joint consultations or actions are not
possible,
these states may act independently.
The Treaty of Alliance involves Cyprus, Greece, and
Turkey. It
establishes a tripartite headquarters on the island and
permits the
two latter states to deploy, respectively, 950 and 650
military
personnel to Cyprus to protect the island and train its
army. The
Treaty of Establishment grants Britain sovereignty over a
total of
256 square kilometers of territory on the island's
southern coast
for two military bases, Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Between the
signing
of these treaties in early 1959 and independence on August
16,
1960, a long and intricate constitution was worked out,
with
elaborate protections for the rights of the smaller
Turkish Cypriot
community.
Almost from the beginning, however, governing the
island was
difficult. Resentment within the Greek Cypriot community
arose
because Turkish Cypriots were given a larger share of
government
posts than the size of their population warranted. The
disproportionate number of ministers and legislators
assigned to
Turkish Cypriots meant that their representatives could
veto
budgets or legislation and prevent essential government
operations
from being carried out. A Cypriot army, to be composed of
both
ethnic groups, was not formed because of disagreements
about
organizational matters. Nor was the crucial issue of
municipal
government settled to the satisfaction of Turkish
Cypriots.
The complicated governmental system established by the
constitution would have had difficulty functioning well
even under
normal conditions, but the withholding of support for the
new
republic on the part of many Cypriots made its smooth
functioning
even less likely. The acrimony, ill will, and suspicion
that
existed between the two ethnic communities made impossible
the
spirit of cooperation needed for the system to succeed.
Not
surprisingly, the early 1960s saw the resurgence of armed
groups
that had been active during the uprising against British
rule. The
Greek Cypriot National Organization of Cypriot Fighters
(Ethniki
Organosis Kyprion Agoniston--EOKA) rearmed, as did its
Turkish
Cypriot counterpart, the Turkish Resistance Organization
(Türk
Mukavemet Teskilâti--TMT). They were joined by growing
contingents
of Greek and Turkish soldiers from the mainland, whose
numbers were
much in excess of the limits set by the Treaty of
Alliance. The
frustrations of political impasse, coupled with the
presence of
armed bands, made for an explosive situation.
In late 1963, the republic's president, Archbishop
Makarios
III, proposed a series of constitutional changes that, if
enacted,
would have reduced the political rights and powers of the
Turkish
Cypriot community. These proposals worsened an already
tense
situation, and in December 1963 serious intercommunal
violence
broke out. In the next months, hundreds died. In March
1964, the
first members of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in
Cyprus
(UNICYP) were deployed to Cyprus, but hostilities
continued into
August 1964. Only vigorous diplomacy from United States
president
Lyndon Johnson prevented a Turkish invasion in June 1964.
Several years of relative peace ensued, but the
governing
system established in 1960 no longer functioned. Turkish
Cypriots
had withdrawn from the republic's politics and were
fashioning a
governing system of their own. In addition, a good part of
the
Turkish Cypriot community lived in enclaves because many
Turkish
Cypriots had abandoned their homes out of fear of Greek
Cypriot
violence.
Intercommunal violence erupted in November 1967, when
two dozen
Turkish Cypriots were killed by Greek Cypriot forces under
the
command of Colonel George Grivas, the leader of the
insurgency
against the British in the 1950s. The threat of a Turkish
invasion
led the Greek government to remove Colonel Grivas and
thousands of
its troops from the island.
A coup d'état in Athens in 1967 established a military
dictatorship that lasted until 1974. Elements of this
regime
pressed vigorously for enosis. Some members of the junta
were even
willing to cede parts of Cyprus to Turkey in exchange for
a joining
of the island with Greece. Greek pro-enosists, joined by
like-
minded rightist Greek Cypriot groups, put pressure on
Archbishop
Makarios. In 1970 there was an unsuccessful assassination
attempt
on the president. Makarios yielded to the junta on some
points,
once, for example, accepting the "resignations" of several
members
of his cabinet known to oppose the Athens government. He,
however,
would not compromise on the larger issue of the
territorial
integrity of the republic. Makarios, once a leading
exponent of
enosis, had come to place more value on the independence
of Cyprus
as a sovereign state than on union with Greece.
In July 1974, Greek Cypriot underground groups and the
Greek
Cypriot National Guard overthrew Archbishop Makarios and
selected
Nicos Sampson, a notorious EOKA terrorist, as his
replacement.
Makarios escaped with British help and appealed to world
opinion at
the United Nations. Within a week of the rightist coup
d'état,
Turkish forces invaded Cyprus. Turkish officials justified
their
country's actions by citing the terms of Article IV of the
Treaty
of Guarantee, noting the impossibility of joint action
with Greece
and the reluctance of Britain to use military force to
restore the
"state of affairs" established by the constitution of
1960. A brief
truce permitted Turkish forces to consolidate their
positions and
a quick second campaign in mid-August allowed them to
occupy 37
percent of the republic.
The idea of enosis grew out of the successful Greek
revolution
of the 1820s. The dream of uniting all formerly Greek
lands to the
motherland spread during the nineteenth century. At first
the
movement was confined to the small educated segment of
society, but
as the general population became literate, the megali
idea
(grand idea in Greek), as it was often termed, found ever
more
adherents. The enosis movement had some notable successes.
Crete
was returned to Greece in the late nineteenth century, and
after
World War II a number of islands off the Turkish coast
became
Greek. The movement also suffered major reverses, most
notably
Kemal Atatürk's beating back the Greek Army when it
invaded Turkey
in the early 1920s.
By the mid-twentieth century, most Greek Cypriots
desired that
their island be united with Greece. The campaign for
enosis was
strengthened by the world-wide upsurge of anticolonialism
after
World War II. The enosis movement, which had become
coupled with
the goal of ending British rule of the island, erupted
into armed
rebellion in April 1955.
Cyprus's unification with Greece faced two significant
obstacles: the island's proximity to Turkey and distance
from
Greece, and the presence of a substantial Turkish Cypriot
minority
who had lived on the island for hundreds of years. Either
obstacle
by itself could conceivably have been overcome, but
together they
posed in the end an insurmountable barrier to enosis.
The island's size and closeness to Turkey meant that
the
Turkish military would be opposed to its being occupied by
Greek
forces. In addition, the 800 kilometers that lay between
Cyprus and
the Greek mainland made it nearly impossible for Greek
forces to
seize and hold the island successfully.
The Turkish Cypriot community was the other significant
barrier
to enosis. Present on the island since it had been seized
in 1571
from Venice, Turkish Cypriots were adamantly opposed to
living as
a minority under Greek rule. Few Turkish Cypriots had
objected to
British rule, and British policy had been to use them as a
counterweight in colonial institutions in order to block
Greek
Cypriot efforts for enosis. The growing virulence of the
enosist
movement was noted with concern by the smaller community,
and
during the 1950s a Turkish Cypriot nationalism emerged
that
rivalled that of the enosists in intensity. Some Turkish
Cypriots
came to advocate taksim, that is, partition of the
island,
as a way to prevent their becoming a minority in a Greek
state.
The gradually widening division of the two communities
during
the twentieth century was new to the island. For centuries
the two
groups had lived together in mixed villages or in separate
villages
close to villages of the other group. Intercommunal
relations were
harmonious if reserved; intermarriage was rare, but
interethnic
violence was even rarer. The two groups had even joined
together at
times to protest despotic rule from Constantinople.
During the twentieth century, however, the number of
mixed
villages declined, and the first instances of
intercommunal
violence occurred. Mounting pressure for enosis was the
main cause
of estrangement between the communities. Another cause was
the
increase in schooling and literacy. The two communities
used
textbooks from their respective motherlands, texts laden
with
chauvinistic comments emphasizing the rapacity, cruelty,
and
duplicity of the other community. Centuries of conflict
between
Greece and Turkey afforded an ample stock of atrocities to
strengthen the aversion felt for the "traditional" enemy,
be it
Greek or Turkish. The commonly practiced British colonial
policy of
"divide and rule," of setting the two communities'
interests
against one another to maintain London's hold on Cyprus,
also
engendered intercommunal animosity. Some writers have
charged that
the British policy of emphasizing the role of the
communities in
governing encouraged the growth of ethnic as opposed to
Cypriot
nationalism. Some scholars have noted that the absence of
Cypriot
nationalism was perhaps the most fateful legacy of British
rule and
that it doomed the Republic of Cyprus from the outset. A
sense of
nationalism might well have muted ethnic differences and
bound the
island's inhabitants together.
As a result of these disparate factors, in the late
1950s
intercommunal violence became common for the first time in
Cypriot
history. Violence of Cypriot against Cypriot flared even
stronger
in the 1960s and ended hopes that the Republic of Cyprus
could work
as planned in the elaborate and carefully crafted
constitution of
1960.
At the end of his life, Archbishop Makarios stated in
an
interview with a Norwegian journalist that of all the
mistakes he
had made in his life, he most regretted the role he had
played in
the movement for enosis. Even before he became the first
president
of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960, Makarios was the
dominant figure
on Cyprus. His dominance extended from the early 1950s
when he
became head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus until
his death
in 1977. He had began agitating for enosis as a young
bishop. As
archbishop he was the ethnarch or leader of the Greek
Cypriot
community, and in that role he continued working for union
with
Greece, even enduring exile for his role in the rebellion
against
British rule. He regarded the imposition of the Republic
of Cyprus
on the island by outside powers as a temporary setback on
the way
to enosis, and a setback that he could undo. In the late
1960s,
however, Makarios stated publicly that he had come to
regard enosis
as still desirable but impossible to achieve, at least in
the near
future. Opposed in the 1969 presidential election by a
die-hard
enosist, Makarios won over 95 percent of the Greek Cypriot
vote.
The movement's extremists resorted to violence in the
early 1970s,
even mounting assassination attempts against him. The
movement to
which Makarios had given so much had turned against him.
In 1974
enosists, with extensive Greek aid, staged a coup d'état
that
caused Makarios to flee the country. The Turkish invasion
a week
later partitioned the country and resulted in one-third of
the
island's population being driven from their homes. The
powerfully
seductive ideal of enosis furthered by Makarios during
most of his
career had, in his words, "destroyed Cyprus" and made of
him a
tragic figure.
As of late 1992, Cyprus remained partitioned. The
southern
portion of the island was governed by the internationally
recognized Republic of Cyprus and was home to the island's
Greek
Cypriot community. This community had made a remarkable
recovery
since 1974, despite the great material and psychological
damage it
had suffered from the Turkish invasion. Its economy had
flourished
and modernized and created a standard of living superior
to that of
some West European nations. This achievement was made
possible by
a versatile and skilled work force, a well-established
entrepreneurial class, a sophisticated program of
government
planning, and a highly successful tourist industry that
welcomed
over a million tourists a year by the early 1990s. Foreign
economic
aid also contributed to the striking economic recovery, as
did the
collapse of Beirut as an international business center in
the
Middle East.
Prosperity led to social changes and permitted an
expansion of
the education system. Although Greek Cypriot society
remained more
traditional than most European societies, women worked
more outside
the home than their mothers did and young people displayed
many of
the characteristics of their West European counterparts.
Education
was widely available and esteemed. The Republic of Cyprus
had one
of highest rates of university graduates in the world.
This was
true despite the fact that, until the early 1990s, all
Greek
Cypriots wishing to study at the university level had to
do so
abroad because the Republic of Cyprus had no university.
Greek Cypriot politics matured after the invasion.
During the
first years of the republic's history, political parties
more
closely resembled groupings or factions around dominant
individuals
than organizations with political programs. After the
events of
1974, new parties with a more clearly defined political
ideology
formed. Only the two left-wing parties pre-dated 1974: the
Progressive Party of the Working People (Anorthotikon
Komma
Ergazomenou Laou--AKEL), a doctrinaire yet in practice a
moderate
and pragmatic communist party; and the United Democratic
Union of
Cyprus (Eniea Dimokratiki Enosis Kyprou--EDEK), usually
referred to
as the Socialist Party EDEK (Sosialistiko Komma EDEK), a
left-wing
party consisting mainly of urban white-collar employees
and
professionals. In 1976 two right-wing parties were formed:
the
Democratic Rally (Dimokratikos Synagermos--DISY), led by
Glafkos
Klerides; and the Democratic Party (Dimokratiko
Komma--DIKO),
headed by Spyros Kyprianou, who succeeded Archbishop
Makarios as
president. Kyprianou remained president until his defeat
in 1988 by
George Vassiliou, a businessman not tied to any party, who
had the
backing of AKEL and EDEK. In addition to these four main
parties,
several smaller groups were active as well.
Domestic politics mirrored those of most other
prosperous
democratic countries, with individual parties advocating
policies
in consonance with their political philosophy. The
overriding issue
in Cypriot politics, however, was the question of dealing
with the
de facto partition of the island. Here the parties' course
was
unusual. The right-wing DISY and the communist AKEL
generally
advocated a more flexible approach to negotiating with the
Turkish
Cypriots. These two parties favored making greater
concessions than
had former President Kyprianou, and they were frequently
harsh in
their criticism of what they regarded as his intransigence
or
insufficient sense of reality. DIKO and EDEK, for their
part, were
less willing to yield up long-held positions no matter how
unacceptable they were to Turkish Cypriot negotiators.
They often
condemned what they saw as President Vassiliou's
insufficient
protection of the country's interests.
Greek Cypriot politics were stable. There were four
main
parties in the House of Representatives; the changing
majorities in
this body reflected the public's evolving opinion on main
issues.
Most analysts believed, for example, that the results of
the May
1991 parliamentary elections indicated that overall the
public
supported President Vassiliou's willingness to break new
ground in
intercommunal negotiations. In the elections, DISY won
twenty seats
in the House of Representatives, one more than in the last
parliamentary elections in 1985, and received 35.8 percent
of the
vote. AKEL increased its number of seats to eighteen, a
gain of
three, and got 30.6 percent of the vote. AKEL's win was
all the
more impressive because in May 1990 a faction of its
membership,
frustrated by a reform of AKEL that seemed too slow to
them, had
formed a new party, the Democratic Socialist Renewal
Movement
(Anorthotiko Dimokratiko Sosialistiko Kinima--ADISOK). The
new
party got 2.4 percent of vote, but won no seats. DIKO took
a
drubbing, losing eight of its nineteen seats and polling
only 19.5
percent of the vote, compared with 27.6 percent in 1985.
Although
EDEK's share of the vote remained almost the same, falling
slightly
to 10.9 percent, it gained one parliamentary seat for a
total of
seven.
President Vassiliou's popularity would again be put the
test by
the presidential elections scheduled for February 1993 in
which, as
of late 1992, there were four candidates. Running once
again as an
independent, President Vassiliou had the support of AKEL.
Glafkos
Clerides, unsuccessful in several earlier attempts to win
the
republic's highest political office, had the support of
DISY, the
party he had founded and had led since the mid-1970s. DIKO
and
Socialist Party EDEK formed an electoral front to back
Paschalis
Paschalides, a businessman active in Cypriot public
affairs since
the rebellion against British rule. The fourth candidate
was an
independent, Yiannakis Taliotis, a former deputy mayor of
the
western port of Paphos.
In the northern part of the island, 37 percent of
Cyprus's
territory was occupied by the "Turkish Republic of
Northern Cyprus"
("TRNC"), unilaterally proclaimed in November 1983 by the
Turkish
Cypriots and recognized by no state other than Turkey.
(Because
this state is not recognized by the United States
government, its
name is within quotation marks.) Protected by an estimated
30,000
Turkish troops based on the island and bolstered by much
Turkish
aid, the Turkish Cypriot community has formed its own
governing
institutions, fashioned a functioning democracy with a
free press,
put in place an education system that extends from the
pre-school
to the university level, and laid the groundwork of an
economy
that, despite a Greek Cypriot economic blockade, has
registered
respectable growth rates and benefited from the visits of
over
300,000 tourists a year.
As of late 1992, the Turkish Cypriot community was
headed by
the veteran politician Rauf Denktas, a leading figure in
Cypriot
affairs since the mid-1950s. Denktas was elected president
of the
"TRNC" in 1983 and again in 1990. Until mid-1992, he was
supported
by the National Unity Party (Ulusal Birlik Partisi--UBP),
which had
been the Turkish Cypriot governing party since its
founding in
1975. After by-elections in 1991, UBP controlled
forty-four of the
fifty seats in the National Assembly, the Turkish Cypriot
legislative body.
Despite the UBP's virtual monopoly of parliamentary
seats,
there was a vigorous political opposition in the "TRNC."
Two left-
of-center parties, the Communal Liberation Party (Toplumcu
Kurtulu
Partisi--TKP) and the Republican Turkish Party
(Cumhuriyetçi Türk
Partisi--CTP), along with the centrist New Dawn Party
(Yeni Dogus
Partisi--YDP) and several smaller parties forcefully
condemned the
policies, both foreign and domestic, pursued by the
government and
Denktas. These parties generally recommended greater
flexibility in
negotiating with the Republic of Cyprus over issues
relating to the
island's partition. The TKP and CTP were also concerned
about the
role settlers from the Turkish mainland (estimated between
30,000
and 50,000) had in the "TRNC" and might have in a possibly
negotiated new federal, bicommunal, and bizonal republic
that could
eventually replace the Cypriot state that had come into
being in
1960.
The TKP, the CTP, and the YDP had formed an electoral
alliance,
the Democratic Struggle Party (Demokratik Mücadele
Partisi--DMP),
for the 1990 parliamentary elections. The party won
sixteen seats.
The TKP and CTP charged election irregularities
and refused to occupy their fourteen seats. The 1991
by-election to
fill these seats resulted in ten for the UBP, the
remainder going
to several smaller parties and independents. Many Turkish
Cypriots
were appalled at the results of this election, fearing
that the
election endangered the survival of democratic politics in
their
country. In the latter half of 1992, ten of the UPB's
delegates
withdrew from the party and formed a new group, the
Democratic
Party (Demokratik Parti--DP), headed by Hakki Atun and
having
Serdar Denktas, a son of Rauf Denktas, as a member. Atun
and his
partners were generally in agreement with the UBP on the
national
issue, but charged the party's leadership with extensive
financial
and political corruption. At the end of 1992, the UBP
still
controlled thirty-four seats of the fifty-seat Legislative
Assembly, but its political dominance and its leader,
Dervi
Eroglu, were under vigorous attack from the DP, the TKP,
the CTP,
and some smaller parties.
This upheaval in Turkish Cypriot politics occurred
against a
backdrop of international controversy over the failure of
intercommunal negotiations, sponsored by the United
Nations (UN) in
the summer and fall of 1992, to resolve the island's de
facto
partition. In the first half of 1992, there was more
optimism than
usual that these negotiations would yield a settlement of
the
island's division that was acceptable to both ethnic
communities.
Working from a "set of ideas" that incorporated many
hard-won
compromises from earlier negotiations, the new UN
secretary
general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, thought that an agreement
was
finally within reach. Meetings in the summer and fall in
New York
between President Vassiliou and Turkish Cypriot leader
Rauf Denkta
ended in early November, however, without success. Lack of
agreement on the degree of sovereignty each component part
of the
new federal state was to possess, how much territory
Turkish
Cypriots would relinquish, and under what conditions Greek
Cypriot
refugees from areas remaining under Turkish Cypriot
control were to
return to their homes caused the failure. The secretary
general
issued a report that unequivocally blamed the Turkish
Cypriot side
for the failed negotiations. The Turkish Cypriots rejected
his
judgements as unfair. Talks were scheduled to resume in
March 1993
after presidential elections in the Republic of Cyprus in
February.
Intercommunal negotiations to arrange a new bicommunal,
bizonal
federal republic had been underway since 1975. In 1977
Makarios had
agreed that the new Cypriot state would consist of the two
communities, each with extensive local autonomy in
discrete
regions, but united via some degree of federation into a
single
state. In 1979 procedures that facilitated further
dialogue were
worked out by negotiators from the two communities. Aided
by the
good offices of the UN, negotiations continued at numerous
venues
through the 1980s and into the 1990s, but without
significant
accomplishments. In early 1985, an agreement was nearly
achieved,
but President Kyprianou backed off at the last moment.
Although
Kyprianou was censured in the House of Representatives for
failure
to reach an agreement, his party won the ensuing
parliamentary
elections. Voter discontent removed him from office in
1988. George
Vassiliou, an independent, was elected president, probably
because
Greek Cypriots hoped he could bring a new openness and
fresh
initiatives to the negotiating process.
Over the years, Greek Cypriots had come to accept the
concept
of a bicommunal, bizonal, federal republic. This meant
that some of
Cyprus would remain under Turkish Cypriot control. Greek
Cypriots
would be allowed to return to properties they owned in
this area
before 1974, or be compensated for them, but attention
would be
paid to "certain practical difficulties." Also accepted
was the
principal Turkish Cypriot demand that the two communities
be seen
as political equals despite their differences in size. The
Turkish
Cypriot community was not to be seen as a minority,
although it
made up less than 20 percent of the island's population.
It was to
have exclusive management of its own communal affairs.
Frequent
demands that Turkish troops be withdrawn from the island
before
negotiations began had been abandoned because of hopes
that
intercommunal talks could have positive results.
As broad as these concessions were, Greek Cypriots
remained
adamant on a number of points. They demanded the eventual
removal
of Turkish troops from the island. Of even greater
importance and
more difficult to resolve was how to undo the losses
suffered by
Greek Cypriot refugees. An estimated 160,000 Greek
Cypriots had
fled or been driven from their homes and lost much
property in what
became the "TRNC," as compared with about 50,000 Turkish
Cypriots
who had moved out of areas under the control of the
Republic of
Cyprus. Greek Cypriot insistence on realizing the "three
freedoms"
of movement, settlement, and ownership throughout Cyprus
for all
Cypriots was intended to expunge the results of the
Turkish
invasion.
Greek Cypriot demands that the three freedoms
eventually be
realized throughout Cyprus challenged negotiators. The
degree and
quality of federation, or confederation, that Turkish
Cypriots saw
as a necessary underpinning for their political freedom
also
received much discussion.
Reconciling these varied aims would work only if both
communities manifested patience, flexibility, and good
faith. Given
the great stakes involved and the power of pressure groups
within
communities (most notably refugee groups), these qualities
were
often lacking. Observers noted that both parties on
occasion
demonstrated a desire to win on all points rather than
conceding
some. A negotiating team having made some gains might
suddenly
renounce earlier concessions. Concessions granted often
resulted in
vitriolic attacks from within the negotiators' own
community.
Confidentiality of negotiations was rare; within hours
full
accounts of closed talks were available to the public.
As always in Cypriot history, the success of a new
settlement
would be affected by external forces. Turkey and Greece
would
almost certainly be involved in the final agreement and
would sign
treaties similar to the Treaties of Guarantee and
Alliance. For
both political and military reasons, neither Greek nor
Turkish
elites could ignore Cyprus because in recent decades
events there
had affected the larger states, sometimes in ways not to
their
liking. To reach his objectives, Archbishop Makarios, for
example,
frequently appealed to the Greek people over the heads of
the Greek
political leadership. Rauf Denktas, for his part, had so
much
personal support among Turkey's political and military
elites that
only the strongest of Turkish governments could coerce
him. In
effect, he was to some degree independent of Turkey, the
country
that guaranteed his survival and that of the "TRNC."
Conversely,
Greek and Turkish politicians often found the Cyprus issue
a ready
tool with which to attack their domestic opponents; hence
there was
a narrowing of the range of policy decisions relating to
Cyprus
available to the leaders of the two nations.
The end of the Cold War has lessened international
concern with
Cyprus. The disappearance of the Soviet Union meant, at
least in
the early 1990s, that Western Europe's security would no
longer be
threatened by a rupture of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization's
southeastern flank in the event of a war between Greece
and Turkey
over Cyprus, as could have happened in 1964, 1967, and
1974.
Cyprus's reduced geopolitical significance is reflected by
the
increasing reluctance of the UN to maintain forces on the
island.
In addition, instability elsewhere on the globe has taxed
the
resources of the organization and its member states. As
part of a
planned reduction of UNFICYP forces, the Danish contingent
of
several hundred personnel was scheduled to depart from
Cyprus by
mid-January 1993, leaving 1,500 UN soldiers to man the
buffer zone
that cuts across the island.
In the short run at least, the end of the Cold War
would most
likely benefit Turkey because its size and location made
its
goodwill and cooperation crucial to the Western powers, as
was
demonstrated in the Gulf Crisis of 1990-91. Given the
continuing
instability in the Middle East, in the Balkans, and in
some of the
former Soviet republics bordering these areas, Turkey's
strategic
importance would probably endure and make unlikely
sustained and
significant outside pressures to resolve the Cyprus
question.
Greece retained, however, its trump card: its ability to
block
Turkey's membership in the European Community if the
Cyprus problem
were not settled in a way it found satisfactory.
Despite the obstacles to a mutually acceptable
settlement, hope
remained that the creation of a new bicommunal, bizonal,
federal
state might someday be agreed on. In 1992 after the nearly
twenty
years of division, the younger members of each community
had little
or no first-hand knowledge of one another. Some observers
believed
this lack of familiarity would facilitate polite
intercommunal
relations along the formal lines established by a new
settlement.
Young Cypriots had an advantage their parents and
grandparents had
not had: they knew well how terrible the results would be
of
another failure to live together peacefully on their small
island.
Blessed with hindsight and aware of the immense gains a
reasonable
settlement would bring, perhaps young Cypriots would make
their
island whole again.
Eric Solsten
December 17, 1992
Data as of January 1991
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