TARİHİ TÜRK-YUNAN İHTİLAFININ SON AŞAMASI OLARAK KIBRIS
CYPRUS AS THE LAST PHASE OF HISTORICAL TURCO-GREEK CONFLICT

Author : Savaş AÇIKKAYA -- Osman YALÇIN
Number of pages : 33-57

Abstract

Greeks revolted against Ottoman rule in the 19th century and won their independence with actual support of the European industrialized great powers. Since the foundation of the Kingdom of Greece, this small state -again under the auspices of the Great Powers- constantly extended against Ottoman State for almost a century. Through the 1923 Population Exchange Convention between the two countries, new Turkey achieved to completely turkicize its regions where once Greeks were also inhabitants and Greece achieved to completely grecize the regions within its current boundaries except Western Thrace where there is still Turkish population. Turco-Greek relations were on friendly terms for a quarter century thereafter. However, Cyprus, -as an island under the domination of Britain- where Greek and Turkish communities used to live together, remained forgotten and untouched during the population exchange between Turkey and Greece. When Enosis policy (unification of Cyprus with Greece) based on violence against Turkish Cypriots started to be implemented, Turkey and Greece once again encountered from mid 1950s. The island is 600 miles away from the Greek mainland while the distance between the island and the Turkish coasts is just 45 miles. The most important turning point in the Cyprus issue, which did not remain as a conflict between two parties and internationalized, was the Lancaster House Summit in 1955 as the basis of Zurich and London Treaties. Finally Turkey made a military intervention as a guarantor state in 1974 in terms of its right arising from Zurich and London Treaties. No violence or clash of arms has occurred on the island since then. The most basic result of Turkey's intervention is that it brought bizonality to the island. In 2004, as an another historical turning point in Cyprus, the plan of Kofi Annan which aimed to end the political

Keywords

Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, Enosis, Johnson’s Letter, Annan Plan Referendum.

Read: 648

Download: 229