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Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It is geographically a part of West Asia, but its cultural ties and geopolitics are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the third largest and third-most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is east of Greece, north of Egypt, south of Turkey, and west of Lebanon and Syria. Its capital and largest city is Nicosia. Cyprus also shares land borders with Akrotiri and Dhekelia, a dependent territory of the United Kingdom. The northeast portion of the island is de facto governed by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
The Cyprus problem, also known as the Cyprus conflict, Cyprus issue, Cyprus dispute, or Cyprus question, is an ongoing dispute between the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot community in the north of the island, where troops of the Republic of Turkey are deployed. This dispute is an example of a protracted social conflict. The Cyprus dispute stems from a Turkish military invasion of the island after a coup, and the presence of Turkish soldiers despite a legal reinstatement of a stable government. Also some of the ethnic Turkish peoples' desire for the partition of the island of Cyprus through Taksim and mainland Turkish nationalists settling in as a show of force, as a supposed means of protection of their people by what they considered to be the threat of Greek-Cypriots.
Makarios III was a Greek Cypriot archbishop, primate, statesman and politician who served as the first President of Cyprus between 1960 and July 1974, with a second term between December 1974 and 1977. He was also the Archbishop of the autocephalous Church of Cyprus from 1950 to 1977.
Enosis is the movement of various Greek communities that live outside Greece for incorporation of the regions that they inhabit into the Greek state. The idea is related to the Megali Idea, an irredentist concept of a Greek state that dominated Greek politics following the creation of modern Greece in 1830. The Megali Idea called for the annexation of all ethnic Greek lands, parts of which had participated in the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s but were unsuccessful and so remained under foreign rule.
The Democratic Party is a Greek-Cypriot nationalist, centrist political party in Cyprus founded in 1976 by Spyros Kyprianou.
The Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organization that fought a campaign for the end of British rule in Cyprus, and for eventual union with Greece.
At the national level, the Republic of Cyprus holds elections for its head of state, the President of Cyprus, and for its legislature, the House of Representatives.
Cyprus was part of the British Empire, under military occupation from 1914 to 1925, and a Crown colony from 1925 to 1960. Cyprus became an independent nation in 1960.
The Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on 20 July 1974 and progressed in two phases over the following month. Taking place upon a background of intercommunal violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and in response to a Greek junta-sponsored Cypriot coup d'état five days earlier, it led to the Turkish capture and occupation of the northern part of the island.
The Turkish Cypriot enclaves were inhabited by Turkish Cypriots between the intercommunal violence of 1963–64 and the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
The 1974 Cypriot coup d'état was a military coup d'état executed by the Cypriot National Guard and sponsored by the Greek military junta. On 15 July 1974 the coup plotters removed the sitting President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III, from office and installed pro-Enosis nationalist Nikos Sampson. The Sampson regime was described as a puppet state, whose ultimate aim was the annexation of the island by Greece; in the short term, the coupists proclaimed the establishment of the "Hellenic Republic of Cyprus". The coup was viewed as illegal by the United Nations.
The London and Zürich Agreements for the constitution of Cyprus started with an agreement on 19 February 1959 in Lancaster House, London, between Turkey, Greece, the United Kingdom and Cypriot community leaders. On that basis, a constitution was drafted and agreed together with two prior Treaties of Alliance and Guarantee in Zürich on 11 February 1959.
Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.
A de facto republic where Greek and Turkish Cypriots share many customs but maintain distinct identities based on religion, language, and close ties with their respective "motherlands", Cyprus is an island with a highly complex history of nationality due to its bi-communal nature and the ongoing conflict between the two groups. An internationally recognized region, Cyprus is partitioned into four main parts under effective control of the Republic of Cyprus, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the UN-controlled Green Line, and British bases Akrotiri and Dhekelia respectively. Despite its history of conflict, the Green Line is now open and neighborly relationships are being fostered between the two groups.
The Constitution of Cyprus is a document, ratified on August 16, 1960, that serves as the Supreme Law of the Republic of Cyprus defining the system of government of the Cypriot Republic and the civil liberties for the Cypriot citizens. Cypriot government. It was drafted after the country won its independence in 1959 and is Cyprus's first and only constitution to date. The Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus has been in force for 64 years and it has been amended 18 (eighteen) times and 28 Articles of the 199 were modified since 1960. The 18th Amendment concerned Article 111.
The Akritas plan, was an inside document of the Greek Cypriot secret organisation of EOK that was authored in 1963 and was revealed to the public in 1966. It entailed the weakening of the Turkish Cypriots in the government of Cyprus and then uniting (enosis) Cyprus with Greece. According to Turkish Cypriots, the plan was a "blueprint to genocide", but Greek Cypriots claimed that it was rather a “defensive plan”.
The Battle of Tillyria or Battle of Kokkina, also known as Erenköy Resistance, was a conflict on 6 August 1964 between units of the Cypriot National Guard and Turkish Cypriot armed groups in Kokkina area of Cyprus.
Bloody Christmas, in Turkish Cypriot and Turkish historiography, refers to the resumption of intercommunal violence between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots during the Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, on the night of 20–21 December 1963 and the subsequent period of island-wide violence amounting to civil war. This initial episode of violence lasted until 31 December and was somewhat subdued with the start of peace talks at the London Conference, but outbursts of violence continued thereafter. The violence precipitated the end of Turkish Cypriot representation in the Republic of Cyprus.
The vice president of Cyprus is the second highest political position in Cyprus, after the president. Under the power-sharing Constitution of Cyprus, the vice presidency is reserved for a Turkish Cypriot, while the presidency conversely is reserved for a Greek Cypriot. However, ever since the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus effectively created a separate Turkish Cypriot state, the position has been vacant, with the president of the Cypriot House of Representatives becoming the second-in-command.
The Mediterranean island country of Cyprus was one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement with Makarios III attending the 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade, SFR Yugoslavia in 1961, just one year after the Cypriot independence. Membership in the movement was perceived as one of two major foreign-policy alternatives with the first one being formal membership in NATO at least nominally supported by both Greece and Turkey in the initial period after the London and Zürich Agreements, and the second one being pro-Western participation in the Non-Aligned Movement. The United Kingdom and the United States preferred this second option at least until 1963.
References
- ↑ Ker-Lindsay 2011, Chapter 2 Constitutional Collapse 1960-1964; Mirbagheri 2014, p. 18.
- ↑ Richter 2010, p. 113; Ker-Lindsay 2011, Chapter 2 Constitutional Collapse 1960-1964.
- ↑ Göktepe 2003, p. 130.
- ↑ Richter 2010, p. 115; Mirbagheri 2014, p. 19.
- ↑ Richter 2010, p. 115.
- ↑ "13 Points" (PDF). pio.gov.cy. 30 November 1963. Retrieved 5 September 2023.