Back to the Precipice

The issue of the latest eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation over Cyprus could hardly have been more trivial.

Under the London agreement of 1959, both Turkey and Greece have the right to station small detachments of their regular troops on the territory of Cyprus. Early this month, Turkey notified the Cypriot government of Archbishop Makarios that it intended to rotate home 335 Turkish soldiers whose one-and two-year terms were up and to replace them in Cyprus by an equal number. Such exchanges had taken place before without incident. When the Cypriot government requested a postponement, Turkey agreed to a delay of one week.

Swift Response. Cyprus then replied that any and all Turkish regulars were welcome to leave the island but that no replacements could be landed. Insidiously, Makarios ordered the exchange of notes published, thereby making a 'public issue of the impending showdown. If Makarios had said nothing, the Turkish troops could have been quietly rotated without public outcry. But now Turkey's Premier Ismet Inonii was faced with the alternative of a public and humiliating backdown, which would almost certainly topple his government, or of making a landing in force on a hostile shore.

The Turkish response was swift, and spurred on by almost daily violent demonstrations against the U.S. embassy, for the Turks interpret U.S. policy as favoring the Greeks (the Greeks interpret it as favoring Turkey). The Makarios regime was informed that the passenger steamship Amiassa would anchor off the Cypriot port of Famagusta and its 335 unarmed replacements would land, if permitted, while an equal number of unarmed outgoing troops, under United Nations escort, would board the Amiassa and sail home. If the replacements were not allowed to land, said Ankara, a Turkish army would invade Cyprus under naval escort and air cover and occupy as much of the island as was necessary to protect its detachment and the local Turkish Cypriots.

Grudging Consent. It was up to Makarios to 1) yield to the Turkish threat, 2) try to negotiate some concession in return for yielding, or 3) stand pat in the hope that Turkey was bluffing or would be dissuaded by the U.S. or through fear of Russian and Greek intervention.

At week's end, Turkey grudgingly gave its consent to a Greek request that the troop rotation be postponed. Archbishop Makarios flew blithely off to Alexandria to confer with an old friend and ally, Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser. His reported mission: to secure Nasser's permission for Greek and Russian fighter planes to use Egyptian bases in the event of a Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

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