Article IV reserves the right of the guarantor powers to take action to re-establish the current state of affairs in Cyprus, a provision that was used for the Turkish invasion of 1974.
The treaty also allowed the United Kingdom to retain sovereignty over two military bases,[2] Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
Article IV entitled these three guarantor powers to multilateral action among them or, as a last resort if no concerted action seemed possible, each guarantor to unilateral actions confined to restoring its status according to the treaty as a democratic, bicommunal, single, sovereign independent state: In the event of a breach of the provisions of the present Treaty, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom undertake to consult together with respect to the representations or measures necessary to ensure observance of those provisions.
Those circumstances made Turkey claim the right to unilateral action, as provided by the treaty, by first invading and creating a bridgehead and corridor between Kyrenia and Nicosia enclave.
Turkish Cypriots and Turkey view the second invasion and the effective partition as legal, citing how bicommunalism had already ended from 1964 and onwards.