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Cyprus FOREIGN POLICY
Beginning with independence, Cypriots saw their problem
on
several levels. First and foremost, it was an
intercommunal problem
that required local, domestic political solutions. Next,
and very
close to this level, was the relationship of the island to
its
motherlands, Greece and Turkey; the two Cypriot
communities
struggled with the question of how much their foreign
policies
should be determined by the foreign policy interests and
resources
of the motherlands. At another level, many Cypriots
considered
their island a pawn in the superpower struggle, often
exaggerating
its strategic significance. Because the two motherlands,
Greece and
Turkey, were North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
members,
Cyprus was by definition a problem within the Western
camp, a
circumstance the Soviet Union and its allies, during the
Cold War,
occasionally sought to exploit. As a response to these
constricting
relationships, Cypriot foreign policy was nonaligned, and
both
communities found support among Third World countries for
whom the
Cyprus problem resonated with their own problems, be it
the matter
of a larger nearby state occupying territory of a smaller
one, or
the matter of a religious minority suffering
discrimination at the
hands of the majority.
Cyprus's relations with the outside world were
shaped
profoundly by the chronic dilemma of the island's
political
identity. The two communities conducted narrow foreign
policies
focused on this single issue. Yet the Republic of Cyprus
conducted
active and effective diplomatic efforts in many countries
to win
support for its position in UN settlement talks and in
support of
sympathetic resolutions in multilateral forums of which
Cyprus was
a member. The "TRNC" by the mid-1980s tried to break out
of its
isolation and began to conduct its own foreign policy, in
some ways
mirroring the efforts of its Greek Cypriot neighbors.
Recognition
as a state was the primary foreign policy objective of the
regime
in the north. Foreign policy in general was considerably
more
important for the republic; the "TRNC" was persuaded that
its cause
would benefit from "benign neglect" by the world
community,
allowing the two communities to develop normal relations
without
external pressure.
Data as of January 1991
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