History of Cyprus (1878–present)
[citation needed] The British imposed heavy taxes to cover the compensation which they were paying to the Sultan for having conceded Cyprus to them.
International recognition of the new Republic of Turkey resulted from the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 in which the new Turkish government formally recognised Britain's sovereignty over Cyprus (article 20).
In the years that followed, Greek Cypriots' demands for enosis (union with Greece), which the British opposed, developed rapidly during the 1930s, leading to the destruction of the Government House in Nicosia, which was burnt down in the 1931 Cyprus Revolt.
The Governor at the time, Sir Richmond Palmer, took a number of suppressive measures including limitations on the administration and functioning of Greek schools, and prohibition of trade unions and associations of any kind and form.
There were strong protests against the regime but the suppressive measures were not lifted until the beginning of the Second World War, during which more than thirty thousand Cypriots joined the British armed forces.
Led by Archbishop Makarios, the Greek Cypriot demand for enosis emerged with new force in the 1950s, when Greece began to accord it support on the international scene.
When international pressure did not suffice to make Britain respond as required, violence escalated with a campaign against the colonial power organised by EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston).
371 British servicemen died fighting the independence movement during the Cyprus Emergency, including over 20 in the Operation Lucky Alphonse.
[5] Easily infiltrated by Greek Cypriot sympathisers working for them in various ancillary tasks, the British security forces had to exert great efforts under Field Marshal Sir John Harding to suppress the independence movement.
From mid-1956 onwards there were constant discussions in NATO, but all efforts to create an independent Cyprus which would be a member of the Commonwealth of Nations were futile.
The Turkish Cypriot response to the challenges posed by the prospect of decolonization and the breakdown of the colonial order was to adopt the call for partition (taksim).
In the few years that existed before the Zürich and London Agreements (1959 /1960) Greece tried again to win international recognition and support for the cause of enosis at the U.N. against a background of renewed and continuing EOKA violence directed against the British.
In 1958 the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan prepared new proposals for Cyprus, but his plan which was a form of partition, was rejected by Archbishop Makarios.
Archbishop Makarios III, a charismatic religious and political leader, was elected the first president of independent Cyprus on 13 December 1959.
The confrontation prompted widespread intercommunal fighting in December 1963, after which the Akritas Plan was put into motion and Turkish Cypriot participation in the central government ceased on December 23, 1963, when all Cypriot Turks from the lowest civil servants to ministers, including the Turkish Vice-President Dr. Fazıl Küçük were out of the government.
In 1964 the UK Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, met with the American Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy to explain why international intervention was required, stating that "If they had not done so, there would probably have been a massacre of Turkish Cypriots", who were confined in enclaves totalling little more than 3% of the island.
[8] The same year the Turkish parliament voted in favour of the intervention of Cyprus but the lack of support that Turkey faced from both the UN and NATO prevented it.
[citation needed] In 1967, on Cyprus Airways Flight 284 a de Havilland Comet suffered an explosion in the cabin, killing 66.
The Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on 20 July 1974, under Article 4 of the Guarantee Treaty of 1960 by Turkey, after failed UN meetings for international support.
[9] The Guarantee Treaty allowed Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, if attempts to get multilateral support failed, to unilaterally intervene to restore democracy in Cyprus in the event of a coup.
UN-led talks on the status of Cyprus resumed in December 1999 to prepare the ground for meaningful negotiations leading to a comprehensive settlement.
[16] Renewed efforts between the North and the South, the 2014 Cyprus talks of the leaders of Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, produced the unprecedented Joint Declaration for a negotiated settlement.
[19][20] On 28 February 2023, Nikos Christodoulides, the winner of the 2023 presidential election run-off, was sworn in as the eighth president of the Republic of Cyprus.
