Cyprus 1974: Anatomy of an Invasion

Vassilis Fouskas, William Mallinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781032386645
• eBook ISBN: 9781040160114
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Conventional wisdom and ideologies hold that responsibility for the partition of the Republic of Cyprus in the wake of Turkey's multiple advances on the island in summer 1974 rests on domestic ethnic and religious tensions between the Turks and the Greeks. This book, drawing on a wealth of archival material, shows that this is not the case at all. As the detailed report of the United Nations mediator, Galo Plaza, had shown in 1965, the Turks and the Greeks living on the island could easily have co-existed if left alone to determine their future. This did not happen. The partition of the island had been inscribed in NATO's policy since the 1950s, rewarding the strongest component of NATO's southern flank, Turkey, at the expense of Greece, the weaker component. The volume details the role of CIA agents in Greece and the machinations of the Greek junta of Dimitrios Ioannides to overthrow the charismatic leader of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, who had been fighting for an independent and non-aligned Cyprus. It also explains how the partition of Cyprus in 1974 has opened up prospects for the partition of the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, with Greece's eastern Aegean islands becoming 'NATOlands' in the service of the war against Russia.

The volume is an essential reading for researchers and students of the history and politics of Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and south-eastern Europe.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Authors
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Dramatis Personae
• Maps
• Images
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Watershed: Constantinople and Sakarya, August 1922
• 3. Early days for Turkish sub-imperialism
• 4. NATO powers in Cyprus
• 5. Makarios’s anti-NATO thrust for independence
• 6. Dean Acheson fails
• 7. Dictatorship in Greece
• 8. The Greek-Turkish junta in Cyprus
• 9. When détente can be breached: The conjuncture of 6 October 1973–15 July 1974
• 10. Ioannides’ blunder
• 11. British predicaments
• 12. Kissinger’s quirks, the pseudo-ceasefire and the strange survival of the junta
• 13. The Sisco mission: Massaging the ‘guarantors’
• 14. Geneva I (25–30 July 1974) and Geneva II (8–14 August 1974)
• 15. The Greek polity and the lame politics of military operations
• 16. ‘You Concede Every Three Months’
• 17. The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom adopt a subaltern position
• 18. Conclusion
• Bibliographical sources
• Index