Turkish Invasion and the Division of Cyprus
Turkey invaded Cyprus in July 1974 and the island has been partitioned ever since. Cyprus had become independent from Britain in 1960 under a constitution that gave the Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority separate rights and separate vetoes, guaranteed by Greece, Turkey and Britain, with each of the three entitled to act to restore the state of affairs the treaty established. It broke down in 1963. Intercommunal fighting drove Turkish Cypriots into enclaves, a United Nations force arrived in 1964 and is still there. The invasion was triggered by a coup. The Greek military junta in Athens sponsored the overthrow of President Makarios on 15 July 1974 by the Cypriot national guard and EOKA-B, who wanted union with Greece, and installed a man who had led an assassination attempt on Makarios. Turkey invoked the treaty and landed troops on 20 July. A ceasefire and talks in Geneva collapsed, and a second Turkish offensive in August took about thirty-seven per cent of the island. Some 160,000 Greek Cypriots left or were driven from the north and about 50,000 Turkish Cypriots moved the other way, and around 1,500 people on each side remain missing. The junta in Athens fell within days, which is the one consequence nobody planned. The north declared itself a republic in 1983 and is recognised only by Turkey. Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, weeks after Greek Cypriots rejected a reunification plan that Turkish Cypriots accepted. The Green Line runs through the middle of Nicosia, which is the last divided capital in Europe. The buffer zone is a strip of abandoned houses and shops, in places a few metres wide, patrolled by the longest-running peacekeeping mission the United Nations has.
- Year: 1974 CE
- Category: Military
