The following article appears in the mainland Turkis press, 'Today's Zaman'. It is a worthwhile reminder that there are 2 sides of the Cyprus story.

Who destroyed the independence of Cyprus?

In 1959 Turkey, Greece and Great Britain agreed on a formula to settle the Cyprus problem. It was obvious that Enosis (union with mainland Greece) was out of the question as long as the Turkish Cypriots refused to accept it and Turkey supported them.

A compromise proposition for “double Enosis” had been turned down by the Greek side, so the only remaining solu­tion seemed to be “independence” for Cyprus.

After full consultations with the leaders of the two peoples, the Zurich and London Agreements were drawn up. The Turks and Greeks of Cyprus were to become co-founders of the republic and Enosis in any form was to be prohibited, with its prevention guaranteed.

The two peoples were to be auto­nomous in their communal affairs, while participating in the central government on an agreed ratio of 7:3. A functional federation was thus established by the two people who worked together for 18 months in preparing the Cyprus Constitution.

Archbishop Makarios became the first president of this bi-national republic. His first executive action was to appoint Polycarpos Yorgadjis, a notorious National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA) killer with a pathological hatred for Turks, as minis­ter of the interior. Subsequently other EOKA leaders were also given key positions in the government. This was the first step toward the undoing of the newly born Republic of Cyprus and its independence.

It soon became clear that Makarios had never intended to promote and support the bi-national Cypriot state. He looked upon it as a Greek state and ignored virtually all Turkish rights enshrined in the Constitution.

He made no secret of his intention to amend the constitution at any cost and to abrogate the international agreements that pro­hibited union with Greece. To this end he authorized the formation of underground armies to carry out a planned program of action known as the Akritas Plan, which was drawn up by Tassos Papadopoulos, the so-called president of Greek Cypriot Administration since 2003.

On Nov. 30, 1963, Makarios confronted the Turkish wing of the Cyprus government with a proposal for 13 amendments that he must have known in advance would not be accepted. He relied on Turkish resistance to any changes in the Constitution, which had not yet been fully implemented because of the Greek Cypriots and which had only been in force for three years.

For their part the Turks were fully aware of the real intention behind the proposal. They had been following Makarios’s increasingly strident statements about Enosis since independence.

For example, on Sept 5, 1963, Makarios had told a Uusi Suomi correspondent in Stockholm, “It is true that the goal of our struggle is to annex Cyprus to Greece.”

Barely a month before the declaration of independence, in a public speech, Makarios said: “The agreements do not form the goal; they are the present and not the future. The Greek Cypriot people will continue their national cause and shape their future in accordance with their will. The Zurich and London Agreements have a number of positive elements but also negative ones, and the Greeks will work to take advantage of the positive elements and get rid of the negative ones.” (published in the local Greek press on July 28, 1960)

The negative elements Makarios referred to were of course the rights and the status the agreements gave to the Turkish Cypriots and the provision that barred Enosis.

On Dec. 21, 1963, Makarios unleashed his secretly formed armed forces against the Turkish people. Greece was hand in glove with the archbishop in this new conspiracy to destroy the Republic of Cyprus.

Within a few days a wave of violence broke across the island. Armed Greek Cypriot bands, assisted by the Greek Cypriot members of the Cypriot gendarmerie and police, attacked Turkish Cypriot homes in villages and towns in a ruthless rampage of murder and vandalism.

These attacks lasted till 1974, when the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) stepped in to save the lives of the Turkish Cypriots.

I still wonder how Greeks dare to say the Cyprus problem started in 1974