Cyprus Issues: London and Zurich Accords

After the intense and violent intercommunal fighting and the anti-British struggle by the Greek Cypriots, a solution was negotiated by Britain, Turkey and Greece and resulted in the London and Zurich Accords in 1959 and 1960. The accords prohibited Enosis and taksim and introduced bi-communal/federal solution for the island. Britain, Greece and Turkey had a right to intervene, unilaterally or together, in order to restore the state of affairs in the island. Under the agreement, Britain, Turkey, and Greece were made the guarantor powers to ensure the faithful implementation of the agreement in letter and spirit. The constitution Of Cyprus was designed by three powers. The president would be a Greek Cypriot and the vice-president a Turkish Cypriot. There would be a Council of Ministers (7 Greeks, 3 Turks) and a House of Representatives (70 percent Greek, 30 percent Turkish) elected by a universal suffrage for a term of five years. The Republic of Cyprus was eventually come into existence on 16 August 1960, with Makarios its first president.

The partnership republic did work satisfactorily for a short period but then the Greek Cypriots started sabotaging it in order to usurp all powers by throwing out the Turkish community from all organs of the state. It had become obvious from the  first day that the Greek Cypriots, with the apparent connivance of the Greek government, h accepted the independence plan with certain mental reservations. Their ultimate aim to dispossess the Turkish community of all their legal rights through crafty manoeuvring and the use of brute force in order to facilitate the annexation of the island with mainland Greece.

To achieve that aim, a sizeable section of the Greek Cypriot community went to the extent of following a policy of racial genocide so as to get rid of the Turkish population of the island for all times to come. Mass killing of innocent Turkish Cypriots was carried out for a number of years without any check, with the international community turning its head the other way, just as it has been doing in the face of the genocide of Kashmiri Muslims in the Indian-held state of Jammu and Kashmir. The least concerned about these atrocities was Britain whose primary moral and legal obligation as a guarantor power was to intervene and prevent the Greek Cypriots from sabotaging the partnership republic, thereby saving the Turkish community from the atrocities to which they were subjected for many years.