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Cyprus The Greek Coup and the Turkish Invasion
A coup d'état in Athens in November 1973 had made
Brigadier
General Dimitrios Ioannides leader of the junta. Rigidly
anticommunist, Ioannides had served on Cyprus in the 1960s
with the
National Guard. His experiences convinced him that
Makarios should
be removed from office because of domestic leftist support
and his
visits to communist capitals. During the spring of 1974,
Cypriot
intelligence found evidence that EOKA B was planning a
coup and was
being supplied, controlled, and funded by the military
government
in Athens. EOKA B was banned, but its operations continued
underground. Early in July, Makarios wrote to the
president of
Greece demanding that the remaining 650 Greek officers
assigned to
the National Guard be withdrawn. He also accused the junta
of
plotting against his life and against the government of
Cyprus.
Makarios sent his letter (which was released to the
public) to the
Greek president on July 2, 1974; the reply came thirteen
days
later, not in the form of a letter but in an order from
Athens to
the Cypriot National Guard to overthrow its commander in
chief and
take control of the island.
Makarios narrowly escaped death in the attack by the
Greek-led
National Guard. He fled the presidential palace and went
to Paphos.
A British helicopter took him the Sovereign Base Area at
Akrotiri,
from where he went to London. Several days later, Makarios
addressed a meeting of the UN Security Council, where he
was
accepted as the legal president of the Republic of Cyprus.
In the meantime, the notorious EOKA terrorist Nicos
Sampson was
declared provisional president of the new government. It
was
obvious to Ankara that Athens was behind the coup, and
major
elements of the Turkish armed forces went on alert. Turkey
had made
similar moves in 1964 and 1967, but had not invaded. At
the same
time, Turkish prime minister Bülent Ecevit flew to London
to elicit
British aid in a joint effort in Cyprus, as called for in
the 1959
Treaty of Guarantee, but the British were either unwilling
or
unprepared and declined to take action as a guarantor
power. The
United States took no action to bolster the Makarios
government,
but Joseph J. Sisco, Under Secretary of State for
Political
Affairs, went to London and the eastern Mediterranean to
stave off
the impending Turkish invasion and the war between Greece
and
Turkey that might follow. The Turks demanded removal of
Nicos
Sampson and the Greek officers from the National Guard and
a
binding guarantee of Cypriot independence. Sampson, of
course, was
expendable to the Athens regime, but Sisco could get an
agreement
only to reassign the 650 Greek officers.
As Sisco negotiated in Athens, Turkish invasion ships
were
already at sea. A last-minute reversal might have been
possible had
the Greeks made concessions, but they did not. The
intervention
began early on July 20, 1974. Three days later the Greek
junta
collapsed in Athens, Sampson resigned in Nicosia, and the
threat of
war between NATO allies was over, but the Turkish army was
on
Cyprus.
Konstantinos Karamanlis, in self-imposed exile in
France since
1963, was called back, to head the Greek government once
more.
Clerides was sworn in as acting president of the Republic
of
Cyprus, and the foreign ministers of the guarantor powers
met in
Geneva on July 25 to discuss the military situation on the
island.
Prime Minister Ecevit publicly welcomed the change of
government in
Greece and seemed genuinely interested in eliminating the
tensions
that had brought the two countries so close to war.
Nevertheless,
during the truce that was arranged, Turkish forces
continued to
take territory, to improve their positions, and to build
up their
supplies of war matériel.
A second conference in Geneva began on August 10, with
Clerides
and Denktas as the Cypriot representatives. Denktas
proposed a
bizonal federation, with Turkish Cypriots controlling 34
percent of
island. When this proposal was rejected, the Turkish
foreign
minister proposed a Turkish Cypriot zone in the northern
part of
the island and five Turkish Cypriot enclaves elsewhere,
all of
which would amount once again to 34 percent of the
island's area.
Clerides asked for a recess of thirty-six to forty-eight
hours to
consult with the government in Nicosia and with Makarios
in London.
His request was refused, and early on August 14 the second
phase of
the Turkish intervention began. Two days later, after
having seized
37 percent of the island above what the Turks called the
"Atilla
Line," the line that ran from Morphou Bay in the northwest
to
Famagusta (Gazimagusa) in the east, the Turks ordered a
ceasefire .
Data as of January 1991
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