VI.

History of Cyprus

Archeological excavations indicate that people have lived on Cyprus since before 6000 BC. Bronze Age development was extensive, based on Cyprus’s mineral wealth and its favorable geographic position in the eastern Mediterranean.

A.

Early History

In subsequent centuries seafaring and trading peoples of the Mediterranean set up scattered settlements along the coasts of Cyprus. As early as the 14th century BC, Cyprus was colonized by the Mycenaeans, a civilization from the Greek Pelopónnesos (the southern peninsula of Greece). Later in the same century, a great influx of Achaean Greeks arrived in Cyprus (see Achaean League). The first Greek colony is believed to have been founded by traders from Arcadia about 1400 bc (see Ancient Greece). The people of Phoenicia began to colonize the island about 800 bc.

Beginning with the rise of Assyria during the 8th century bc, Cyprus was controlled by each of the empires that successively dominated the eastern Mediterranean. Assyrian occupation was followed by the rule of ancient Egypt (550 bc), then Persia (525 bc). During the Persian occupation King Evagoras I, ruler of the Cypriot city of Salamis, made the first recorded attempt to unify the city-states of Cyprus. In 391 bc Evagoras, with the aid of Athens, led a successful revolt against Persia and temporarily made himself master of the island. Shortly after his death, however, Cyprus again became a Persian possession.

For almost 1,000 years thereafter control of the island passed from empire to empire. Alexander the Great took Cyprus from Persia in 333 bc, and after his death in 323 bc the island again became an Egyptian possession, under the Ptolemies. Rome gained control in 58 bc (see Roman Empire). In ad 1191 Cyprus was seized by Richard I of England, who gave it to Guy of Lusignan, titular king of Jerusalem. The Lusignan dynasty built several large forts and castles, some of which are still standing. In 1489, Venice took control of Cyprus. The Ottoman Empire captured the island in 1571 and held it until 1878, when it was defeated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and 1878 (see Russo-Turkish Wars). Fearing greater expansion by Russia, the Ottoman government agreed to give the United Kingdom control of Cyprus.

B.

British Administration

The move served as a warning to Russia that any attempt to expand toward the Dardanelles would conflict directly with British interests. Under an agreement signed by the Ottoman Empire and Britain on June 4, 1878, the British received complete control of Cyprus for an annual fee of about $500,000, and the Ottoman Empire retained nominal title. When the British administrators assumed office in 1879, they were presented with a petition from the archbishop and the Greek Cypriot community calling for enosis (Greek for “union”), a term referring to the political union of Cyprus and the kingdom of Greece. The petition was denied.

Because the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in World War I (1914-1918), Britain nullified the 1878 treaty in November 1914 and annexed Cyprus. The British government then offered Cyprus to Greece if Greece would agree to enter the war on the Allied side. Greece was given one week to decide. When the decision was delayed, the British withdrew the offer.

By the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), a peace arrangement negotiated by the Turkish nationalist government that had effectively succeeded the Ottoman regime in what is now Turkey, the Turks formally recognized British possession of Cyprus. Two years later the island was made a British colony.

In 1931 riots broke out in Cyprus due to resentment against the British administration. The British suppressed the riots, abolished the legislative council in Cyprus, and banned all political parties. Shortly after World War II ended in 1945, Greek Cypriot demands for enosis again stirred tensions in Cyprus. Britain rejected the demands, offering concessions on home rule, or self-government, instead.

Meanwhile a Communist-controlled Cypriot organization, the Progressive Party of Working People (Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou, or AKEL), proclaimed full support of the enosis movement. The AKEL attracted a considerable following.

C.

Growth of the Enosis Movement

In 1948 the bishop of Citium of Cyprus, Mihail Mouskos, began to organize support for enosis through the Church of Cyprus to exclude Communist influence and to restore the temporal power of the church. In January 1950 the British authorities refused his request for a referendum on enosis. Yet when the church hierarchy polled the Greek community, 95.7 percent favored union with Greece. In October, Bishop Mouskos was elected archbishop primate of Cyprus, with the title Makarios III, and he emerged as the recognized leader of the enosis movement.

The British, however, insisted that it was impossible to discuss any change in the political status of the island due to its strategic location. The British response prompted an armed underground campaign against the government by a movement of Greek Cypriots known as the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle (Ethniki Organosis Kypriakou Agonos, or EOKA). In August 1954 Greece, which had previously avoided involvement in Cyprus because of its alliance with Britain, unsuccessfully sought to have the question of Cyprus’s status brought before the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In the subsequent UN discussions, Turkey announced that it opposed a union of Cyprus with Greece and declared that if Britain withdrew from the island, Cyprus should revert to Turkey.

Early in 1955 Greek Cypriots intensified their terrorist campaign against the British. The British attempted to settle the dispute by a tripartite conference with the foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey. The conference failed, and relations deteriorated. Early in 1956 the British government exiled Archbishop Makarios and the bishop of Kyrenia to the Seychelles Islands on the ground that the church leaders were responsible for the enosis demonstrations. The reaction in Cyprus to this move was so fierce that the government declared a state of emergency. Strikes, armed clashes, and widespread fear overtook Cyprus. Hundreds of people died in the violence.

In early 1957 the UN General Assembly asked that negotiations over the status of Cyprus be resumed. The leaders of EOKA proposed a truce conditional on the release of Archbishop Makarios and the resumption of negotiations with him. The archbishop was released, but he was not permitted to return to Cyprus.

D.

Independence from Britain

In June 1958 the British announced a plan to maintain the international status quo of Cyprus for seven years but to establish representative self-government. Archbishop Makarios and the Greek and Turkish governments rejected the British plan, but in October the British put a modified version of it into effect.

Talks held in 1959 among the various parties led to an agreement on the general features of a constitution for an independent republic of Cyprus. The status of the republic was guaranteed by Britain, Turkey, and Greece. Britain retained sovereignty over two military bases. Archbishop Makarios, who returned to Cyprus on March 1, 1959, was elected president on December 13. Fazıl Küchük, a Turkish Cypriot, became vice president. Independence was proclaimed on August 16, 1960. Cyprus was admitted to the United Nations (UN) and the Commonwealth of Nations.

In December 1963 Greek and Turkish Cypriots clashed after Makarios proposed constitutional changes, including abolition of the Turkish minority’s power to veto laws in the legislature. A violent armed conflict broke out over the island. Turkish Cypriots demanded partition while the Greek Cypriots insisted on a unitary state with minority rights safeguarded. After both Greece and Turkey threatened to intervene, full-scale civil war was forestalled by British troops. The UN appointed a mediator and organized a peacekeeping force to patrol the island.

After December 1963 Cyprus functioned under a crisis government. Immediately after the fighting erupted, vice president Küchük and the Turkish Cypriot ministers, members of the legislature, and civil servants remained in the Turkish quarter in Nicosia, refusing to participate in the national government. They established their own areas of control in Cyprus, referred to as enclaves, which covered less than half the Turkish Cypriot population.

Acceptance of a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire on August 10, 1964, ended sharp fighting between the factions. However, subsequent UN efforts to bring about a settlement failed. Bitterness between Greece and Turkey intensified, with the official government of Cyprus remaining in Greek Cypriot hands. Makarios was reelected president in 1968. Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriots enacted their own laws.

Settlement negotiations resumed in 1968. Greek Cypriots insisted on a unitary state, while Turkish Cypriots called for a federal system. Greek Cypriots regarded the Turkish community as a minority with certain guaranteed rights. Turkish Cypriots demanded a status equal to that of Greek Cypriots. A small minority of Greek Cypriots demanded immediate enosis. Amid these deep divisions, Makarios won reelection in 1973.

E.

Invasion and Partition

Tensions in Cyprus culminated on July 15, 1974, when a military coup ousted Makarios from office and forced him into exile over his reluctance to unite the island with Greece. Members of the Cypriot national guard, supported by the junta (military government) of Greece, carried out the coup against Makarios, who had made no secret of his dislike for the junta. The national guard installed Nikos Sampson, a newspaper publisher, as president.

Turkey, fearing the revolt was a step toward enosis, invaded Cyprus with several thousand troops. After Turkish forces landed on the island, Sampson’s government collapsed. Sampson resigned on July 23, 1974, and Glafkos Clerides, president of the Cyprus House of Representatives, became acting head of state. On the same day, the military government in Greece collapsed. A ceasefire with Turkey was quickly arranged.

During settlement negotiations in Geneva, Turkey demanded autonomy for Turkish Cypriots within a federated Cyprus composed of two separate zones, but the talks collapsed. Turkey resumed military operations in August 1974, finally occupying the northern part of the island. About 200,000 Greek Cypriots fled to the southern zone, while about 40,000 Turkish Cypriots fled north, amid massacres on both sides. Since then, Cyprus has been divided into the Turkish Cypriot controlled north and Greek Cypriot controlled administration in the south, with United Nations (UN) peacekeeping forces patrolling the buffer zone, or “Green Line.” In December 1974 Makarios returned from exile and assumed the presidency.

On February 13, 1975, a semi-independent Turkish Cypriot state was proclaimed in the Turkish-held sector. In April 1975 intermittent talks began under UN auspices to create a federal system with Greek and Turkish zones. The talks continued after Makarios died in 1977. He was succeeded by Spyros Kyprianou, the speaker of the House of Representatives. Kyprianou, who was reelected in February 1983, took a hard line for a unified Cyprus. During his tenure, Greek Cypriots led sometimes violent marches demanding to return to their homes in the north.

In November 1983 Rauf R. Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot president, proclaimed his community an independent republic called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), suspending all talks. Only Turkey has officially recognized this republic.

F.

Continuing Tension

George Vassiliou, a businessman with no party affiliation, defeated Clerides and Kyprianou in the 1988 presidential election. UN-sponsored talks resumed on an intermittent basis in 1988. In 1991 the UN passed a resolution urging the creation of a federal state made up of two politically equal communities. In the 1993 election Vassiliou lost his presidential seat to Clerides, the candidate of the right-wing party Democratic Rally. In 1994 the European Union (EU), dedicated to a unified Cyprus, ruled that all exports from Cyprus must have authorization from the official government, in effect banning direct trade with the TRNC. Later that year, the Turkish Cypriots passed two resolutions calling for the TRNC to coordinate its defense and foreign policy with Turkey and to demand political equality and additional autonomy from Greek Cyprus.

By 1995 negotiations regarding Cyprus’s bid to join the EU were well underway. The TRNC opposed this process, claiming the Greek Cypriot government had pursued EU membership unilaterally. In February 1998 Glafkos Clerides was reelected to a second term as president by a narrow margin. In April the Greek Cypriot government entered accession negotiations with the EU. Meanwhile, UN talks aimed at reunifying Cyprus stalled as the TRNC demanded the suspension of Cyprus’s application for EU membership. Denktash, who won a fourth term as president of the TRNC in April 2000, repeatedly vowed to keep his government outside the talks until the TRNC was accorded international recognition.

Nevertheless, UN-backed negotiations on the future of Cyprus resumed in January 2002. In November the UN unveiled a new peace plan for Cyprus that would reunite the island under a federal system with a weak central government. The following month, the EU announced that Cyprus would be admitted as a member during the EU’s next round of expansion in 2004. In a move intended to encourage the resolution of peace talks in Cyprus, the EU also announced that only the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot sector of the island would be allowed to join the organization if a peace settlement could not be reached.

In the presidential election in February 2003, Clerides—who was seeking a third term of just 16 months in order to oversee Cyprus’s EU accession—was defeated by challenger Tassos Papadopolous, leader of the centrist Democratic Party. One month later, in March 2003, the UN-brokered peace talks collapsed. Both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots had expressed reservations about aspects of the proposed peace plan, including provisions that required territorial exchanges and population movements.

G.

Recent Events in Cyprus

In April 2003 Cypriot authorities eased restrictions along the buffer zone dividing the island since its partition in 1974. Thousands of Cypriots from both communities immediately crossed the line. Since then, many Turkish Cypriots have sought work in the more prosperous south, raising concerns about a potential drain of skilled labor from the north.

In February 2004 Greek and Cypriot leaders, under heavy international pressure, agreed to resume UN-brokered peace negotiations so Cyprus could enter the EU as a united state. However, in referendums on both parts of the island in April, more than 75 percent of Greek Cypriots rejected the UN reunification plan, while about 65 percent of Turkish Cypriots approved it. Cypriot leaders on both sides had campaigned against the plan. Greek Cypriot opposition stemmed mainly from a measure limiting the number of Greeks who could reclaim properties in northern Cyprus that were seized by Turkish Cypriots following Turkey’s 1974 invasion.

Rejection of the plan meant that only the Greek Cypriot-controlled administration was permitted to enter the EU on May 1, 2004. However, Turkish Cypriot endorsement of reunification was widely greeted as a constructive step toward peace. The endorsement yielded some benefits for Turkish Cypriots, including an agreement to permit tariff-free entry of fruits and vegetables produced in the north into southern Cyprus and the EU’s common market as well (provided the goods were shipped from ports in the south). The government of Turkey, in advance of its own scheduled EU membership negotiations, agreed to recognize the Republic of Cyprus as an EU member, although Turkey did not extend full diplomatic recognition to the republic.

In February 2008 the candidate of the Greek Cypriot Communist AKEL party, Demetris Christofias, won the presidential election. The following month Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat agreed to resume talks on reunifying the island. As a symbolic gesture, they also agreed to reopen Ledra Street, once the main commercial thoroughfare in the capital of Nicosia. Barriers marking the Green Line were removed on the street, which reopened in April for the first time since the division of Cyprus in 1974.