Cyprus as a Cold War Legacy: Reading 1960, 1963, 1974 and 1983 as One Continuous Story

Why It Matters

Cyprus is not four separate episodes. The 1960 partnership republic, the 1963 breakdown, the 1974 coup and operation, and the 1983 proclamation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) are links in one chain that began with decolonization and was hardened by Cold War alignments. Reading them together explains why a dispute that began as an anti-colonial campaign in 1955 is still unresolved, and why Türkiye and the Turkish Cypriots now argue that the partnership model has run its course and that sovereign equality should be the starting point for any settlement. This guide sets out the chronology neutrally, presents the Greek Cypriot, Greek, British, EU and UN positions in their own terms, and then states Ankara's case.

This pillar deliberately focuses on continuity from 1960 to today. For the narrow legal debate over 1974, see our sister analyses, such as The Political Anatomy on Article IV of the Treaty of Guarantee.

Background

From Ottoman rule to a British colony

The Ottoman Empire governed Cyprus from 1571 until 1878, when it handed administration of the island to Britain under the Cyprus Convention, while retaining nominal sovereignty. Britain annexed the island in 1914 when the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War, and in Article 20 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne the new Turkish state recognised that annexation. Cyprus became a Crown colony in 1925. This reading of the era runs through the wider 1914–1991 arc described in What Was the 'Short Century'?, and it connects to the post-Ottoman settlement discussed in From Lausanne to the Blue Homeland.

At the end of the 1950s Greek Cypriots made up roughly four-fifths of the population and Turkish Cypriots roughly one-fifth. These proportions matter because the later constitutional design deliberately gave the smaller community protections that a simple majority-rule system would not.

ENOSIS and EOKA (1955–1959)

Mainstream Greek Cypriot political and church leadership pursued ENOSIS, union of the island with Greece. In 1955 Colonel Georgios Grivas founded EOKA (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters), which began an armed campaign against British rule on 1 April 1955. Greek Cypriot accounts present EOKA as an anti-colonial liberation movement. The Turkish Cypriot and Turkish accounts stress that EOKA's goal was annexation to Greece, and that its campaign also targeted Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriot leftists. Turkish Cypriots responded with calls for partition (taksim) and with their own organisation, TMT. Turkish sources record that, between 1955 and 1958, Turkish Cypriots left some 33 mixed villages.

The Cold War shaped the diplomacy. Britain wanted to keep its military facilities, Washington wanted NATO's southeastern flank (Greece and Türkiye) united, and neither wanted an island in the Eastern Mediterranean slipping towards non-alignment. The result was the Zurich and London Agreements of 11 and 19 February 1959, negotiated by Greece, Türkiye and Britain with the two Cypriot communities.

1960: a partnership republic and a guarantee system

The Republic of Cyprus became independent on 16 August 1960 on the basis of three treaties:

• Treaty of Establishment: retained two British Sovereign Base Areas (Akrotiri and Dhekelia).
• Treaty of Guarantee: Article II committed the Republic to maintain its independence and territorial integrity and prohibited both union with any other state and partition. Article IV provided that if the treaty's provisions were breached the three guarantors would consult, and, if concerted action proved impossible, each reserved the right to act with the sole aim of re-establishing the state of affairs created by the treaty.
• Treaty of Alliance: stationed Greek (950) and Turkish (650) contingents on the island.

The constitution was consociational. A Greek Cypriot President and a Turkish Cypriot Vice-President each held vetoes in defined fields (foreign affairs, defence and security for the Vice-President), there were separate communal chambers, and posts in the civil service and security forces were allocated on agreed ratios (70:30 and 60:40). The design was meant to ensure that neither community could dominate the other.

1963–1964: the partnership breaks

On 30 November 1963 President Makarios proposed thirteen constitutional amendments. They would have removed the Vice-President's veto, abolished separate majorities for key legislation and altered the civil-service ratios. The Greek Cypriot account says the amendments were meant to unblock a state that had been struggling to function. The Turkish Cypriot leadership and Ankara rejected them on 16 December 1963, arguing that they would reduce Turkish Cypriots from a co-founding community to a minority.

Fighting broke out in Nicosia on 21 December 1963 ('Bloody Christmas'), and violence spread across the island. Turkish sources describe it as the implementation of the so-called Akritas Plan, a Greek Cypriot blueprint that is widely reported to have foreseen cancelling the Turkish Cypriot constitutional rights. They record that about 30,000 Turkish Cypriots were forced from roughly 103 villages into enclaves and that Turkish Cypriot officials were excluded from state organs. A ceasefire line, the Green Line, divided Nicosia on 30 December 1963. Greek Cypriot accounts attribute the violence to intercommunal clashes and say that the Turkish Cypriot leadership withdrew from state institutions, partly on the instructions of its own leaders.

On 4 March 1964 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 186, establishing the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP). It recognised the 'Government of Cyprus' as responsible for maintaining law and order. For the Greek Cypriot side and most UN members this simply confirmed the continuity of the Republic. For Ankara and Turkish Cypriots it institutionalised a status asymmetry: a government now formed by one community was treated as the state's sole interlocutor.

1967–1974: the junta, the coup and the operation

The Greek military junta took power in Athens in 1967 and clashed with Makarios, who pursued a non-aligned course and was backed by a large Communist party, AKEL. On 15 July 1974 the junta's officers and the National Guard overthrew Makarios and installed Nicos Sampson, a former EOKA gunman, as president.

Türkiye consulted the United Kingdom, which declined joint action, and on 20 July 1974 it launched its military operation, citing Article IV of the Treaty of Guarantee. The junta collapsed in Athens within days, and Security Council Resolution 353 of 20 July called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of foreign military personnel. After the failed Geneva talks, a second phase began on 14 August. By the ceasefire of 16 August 1974 Turkish forces controlled the northern part of the island, and populations moved: Turkish Cypriots largely to the north, and well over 100,000 Greek Cypriots to the south.

The Greek Cypriot, Greek and UN-majority reading is that this was an invasion that went beyond the guarantor's mandate and led to continuing occupation. Türkiye's reading is that it was lawful restoration of the 1960 order, and that the Turkish Cypriots' physical safety could no longer be left to a state that had broken down in 1963. The legal arguments are analysed in Doctrine Review's explainer on the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee.

1975–1983: from federation principle to TRNC

The Turkish Cypriot community proclaimed the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in 1975, and in the 1977 and 1979 High-Level Agreements the two leaders accepted the principle of a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation. The United States had imposed an arms embargo on Türkiye in 1975, which pushed Ankara towards the self-reliance later traced in From Embargo to Self-Reliance.

On 15 November 1983 Rauf Raif Denktaş proclaimed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Security Council responded with Resolution 541 (18 November 1983), which deemed the declaration legally invalid and called for its withdrawal, and Resolution 550 (1984) repeated that call. Only Türkiye recognises the TRNC.

After 1983: referendum, EU entry and diplomatic stalemate

The UN's Annan Plan was put to separate simultaneous referendums on 24 April 2004. 64.91% of Turkish Cypriots voted yes; 75.83% of Greek Cypriots voted no. On 1 May 2004 the Republic of Cyprus, represented by the Greek Cypriot administration, joined the EU, and under Protocol 10 of the accession treaty the acquis was suspended in the north. The Crans-Montana conference collapsed in July 2017. An informal 5+UN meeting in Geneva in April 2021 ended without agreement to resume formal negotiations, and a further UN-hosted meeting in New York on 15 October 2024 again produced no agreed way forward on a settlement model.

Timeline

The Cold War lens

Three Cold War factors recur. First, NATO managed Greek–Turkish tensions primarily to protect alliance cohesion, which meant crisis management rather than settlement. Second, the non-aligned Makarios and a strong Communist party alarmed Western capitals, shaping how outside powers read 1974. Third, the UN framework adopted in 1964 fixed a legal vocabulary that the end of the Cold War did not revisit. That sequence is why the island's story fits Hobsbawm's short century better than any single date does.

Key Players & Positions

The Republic of Cyprus (Greek Cypriot administration). It holds that it is the sole internationally recognised state on the island and the legal continuation of the 1960 Republic. In its view, 1974 was an invasion and military occupation of about 37% of its territory, and the TRNC is a secessionist entity whose declaration the Security Council has called invalid. It supports a settlement based on a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with political equality as defined in UN resolutions. It also points to rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, such as Loizidou v. Turkey and Cyprus v. Turkey (2001), as confirming Türkiye's responsibility for the north.

Greece. Athens supports the Republic of Cyprus and a federal settlement, and rejects a two-state outcome. It has also tied Cyprus issues to wider disputes with Türkiye, including over maritime jurisdiction. Greece has long said that the junta that mounted the 1974 coup does not represent the Greek state of today.

The United Kingdom. As a guarantor power and holder of the Sovereign Base Areas, London says it supports a UN-led settlement and has not endorsed a two-state outcome. It declined joint action with Türkiye in July 1974.

The European Union. The EU treats the Republic of Cyprus as a member, regards the north as territory where Union law is suspended pending a settlement, and supports a settlement within UN parameters. It has taken the position that the whole island is part of the EU.

The United Nations. The Security Council's resolutions, including 186, 353, 541 and 550, are the Greek Cypriot side's main reference points. Successive Secretaries-General have continued to work within the bi-zonal, bi-communal federation framework, although the 2021 and 2024 meetings did not establish common ground for formal negotiations.

The Turkish Cypriot leadership. The TRNC says that it speaks for the community that co-founded the Republic in 1960 and that its people are entitled to equal status.

Source Comparison

Readers should note that Western reporting often compresses 1960–1974 into a story that starts with the 1974 invasion, whereas Turkish sources start in 1955 or 1963. Neither starting point is neutral, which is why this guide uses the treaties and Security Council texts as its anchor. Monitor of Nations and Borders & Blocs carry further detailed claim-by-claim checks. For how we handle disputed claims, see Editorial Principles and our Reader FAQ.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• ENOSIS: the Greek nationalist goal of union of Cyprus with Greece.
• EOKA: the armed organisation founded in 1955 under Colonel Grivas, regarded as freedom fighters in Greek Cypriot memory and as a terrorist organisation in Turkish accounts.
• Treaty of Guarantee (1960): the treaty between Cyprus, Greece, Türkiye and the UK, whose Article II bans union and partition and whose Article IV regulates guarantor action.
• Akritas Plan: a Greek Cypriot plan, cited by Turkish sources, for reducing Turkish Cypriot constitutional rights, and used by those sources to explain the events of 1963.
• Green Line: the ceasefire line in Nicosia first drawn on 30 December 1963, later extended to the buffer zone across the island.
• UNFICYP: the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, created by Resolution 186 in 1964.
• TRNC: the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, proclaimed on 15 November 1983.
• Bi-zonal, bi-communal federation: the UN-endorsed settlement framework dating from the 1977 and 1979 agreements.

Related reading on this site: The Short Century: Today's Crises Read Through the Long Arc of 1914–1991, After 1991: How Post-Cold War Security Vacuums Produced Türkiye's 'Neutralize at the Source' Doctrine, Why Türkiye Says 'The World Is Bigger Than Five' on the Security Council order that shaped Resolution 186, and About The Short Century.

Perspective Note

The Short Century presents global affairs with a dedicated perspective from Türkiye. Sections marked 'Türkiye's Position' reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources. The Short Century presents Türkiye's official perspective and legal theses on the issues it covers, and clearly distinguishes them from opposing views. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaties, UN documents, Ottoman and other state archives, and official statements. Published by The Short Century Editorial Team.