July 20, 2024 marked the 50th anniversary of the Cyprus War, fought in 1974 at the height of an intense crisis that ended with the landing of Turkish forces on the island and its partition into two separate entities. The conflict represented one of the most significant and tragic events in the island’s contemporary history, leading to consequences that are still visible today in the separation between the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized by Turkey alone and in fact remaining a “gray area” that still represents a rather unique and complex case in terms of political analysis.
The 1974 conflict actually constituted only the epilogue of a crisis with deep roots, determined by the events that had affected the island since the late 1800s with its transformation first into a British protectorate and then into a colony.
British domination had strongly, as much as intentionally, altered the historically peaceful relations between the Greek and Turkish communities that had coexisted in Cyprus for centuries and that, although with different traditions, had coexisted without any particular contrasts or episodes of violence. Between the 1920s and 1960s, on the contrary, Britain intentionally contributed to fomenting divisions between the two communities, opening up for the entry of Greek and Turkish nationalism, which resulted in a strong polarization of the two communities in the direction of identity feeling with their respective motherlands.
It was especially Greek nationalism that asserted itself in the early 1950s through the role of an organization, EOKA, whose goal was the integration of Cyprus with Greece, the so-called enosis, with the beginning of a phase characterized by increasing violence against both the British and the Turkish Cypriot communities.
Tensions between the island’s two main ethnic communities, the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots, increased significantly. The Greek Cypriots, who made up about 77 percent of the population, aspired to unification with Greece, while the Turkish Cypriots, who accounted for about 18 percent, feared for their safety and rights on an island dominated by Greek Cypriots.
In 1955, the Cyprus independence movement, led by the paramilitary group EOKA, began a campaign against British rule, culminating in the island’s independence in 1960. However, ethnic problems and political rivalries continued to rage. In the 1960s, there were incidents and violence between the two communities and the situation deteriorated rapidly, leading the UN in 1964 to deploy a peacekeeping force to maintain order.
The escalation of the violence and EOKA’s attempt to integrate the island to Greece fueled within the Turkish Cypriot communities a strong fear of possible expulsion from the island once the Greek Cypriots’ nationalist design was completed, leading to the emergence of Turkish Cypriot nationalist organizations that were soon supported by the Turkish government, setting off a new and much more intense phase of crisis.
With Cyprus’s independence from Britain in 1960, tensions increased, while three international guarantors (Turkey, Greece and Britain) were supposed to try to manage local balances under the provisions of the Zurich and London Treaties, which were, however, systematically disregarded.
A new wave of serious violence then affected the island in December 1963, demonstrating the fragility and weakness of President Makarios, who had sought to foster a balance between the two communities, while the role of Greece and Turkey gradually became more invasive in local political dynamics.
The violence led to the start of a political debate on the partition of the island, supported mainly by Turkey but tenaciously opposed by the Greek Cypriots, and which gave the first hints of Turkey’s possible interest in military intervention in Cyprus, which was strongly opposed by the United States, led by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
The situation in Cyprus was then strongly affected by Greek political events, which in 1967 brought to government in Athens a military junta of strong nationalist inspiration, which greatly fueled the already untenable tensions on the island and went so far as to support a coup against the Makarios government in 1974, through the role of EOKA.
With the flight of Makarios from the island, and the appointment of Nikos Sampson as interim president, the Cyprus crisis entered a maelstrom that immediately saw Turkey exert threats to intervene and demand the enforcement of the guarantee clauses that had been the basis for the country’s independence.
In response to the coup and the EOKA junta’s refusal to accept Ankara’s demands, Turkey launched Operation Attila on July 20, 1974, invading Cyprus with the intention of protecting the Turkish Cypriot community and reunifying the island under a federal government. Turkish forces landed on the north coast of the island and quickly captured a significant part of the territory.
Resistance from the Greek Cypriots was fierce, but the Turkish armed forces were superior and, in a few days, managed to control about 37 percent of the island. This conflict led to massive population displacement, with more than 200,000 Greek Cypriots being forced to flee their homes in the north, while Turkish Cypriots moved northward.
The Cyprus War of 1974 led to a number of devastating consequences. The first, still evident today, was the permanent division of Cyprus into two separate state entities, the Republic of Cyprus, controlled by Greek Cypriots in the south, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey. The demarcation line, known as the “Green Line,” was established to separate the two communities, and has since been assigned to control by the UN mission.
The war caused severe human suffering, as thousands were killed and many more displaced, leading to irreconcilable disputes over the issues of property, which even today are impossible to define. Human rights violations were perpetuated on both sides, with atrocities fueling resentments that never subsided, and with mutual accusations of massacres generating large numbers of missing persons. Mass graves were repeatedly identified in the years following the conflict, fueling suspicions of far more serious crimes committed in the bloodiest phases of the conflict.
In the forty years since the end of the war, the physical separation of the two communities has brought an almost definitive end to the violence, but without resolving the political problem of the island’s division into two separate entities. An obstacle toward the many efforts at conciliation was represented in 1983 by the unilateral decision of the Turkish Cypriot authorities to proclaim themselves an independent state, being recognized by Turkey alone and resulting in an abrupt end to local political dialogue.
Although numerous attempts to restart this dialogue have been recorded over the past two decades, it is now seven years since the two sides seem to have shown any particular interest in resuming the negotiation process, despite the efforts of the United Nations.
An evident generational factor is helping to hinder attempts to resume the national dialogue. The youth of the two communities have no memory of the conflict and the suffering it had caused, and are less imbued with the nationalism that had characterized previous generations, looking with greater interest at the possibility of a solution and placing fewer obstacles in the way of dialogue. The conflict generation, on the contrary, which continues to express a significant part of the ruling class in both contexts, is still deeply conditioned by the memory of the war, the violence and the consequences on the practical level, especially related to the loss of real estate and land, maintaining a profile of hostility that in essence holds hostage the future of the island and its possible evolution in the direction of full pacification.
Even with a full return of peace, therefore, the island remains divided by a curtain of barbed wire demarcating a UN-manned no man’s land, dotted with the wounds of a war that are still visible today and paradoxically now constitute one of Cyprus’ tourist attractions, as in the case of downtown Nicosia or the ghost district of Varosha, or Marash, in the southern part of the city of Famagusta.
