The Johnson letter revisited

Abstract

At 5.30 a.m. on 20 July 1974 Turkish troops started landing in Cyprus marking the beginning of the so-called 'Peace Operation'. The fighting which ensued between the Turkish forces and the troops of Greek Cypriots and those of Greece lasted on and off for a month and by midAugust Turkey had come to control 36 per cent of the island. The Turkish invasion was in response to the anti-Makarios coup of 15 July 1974, engineered by the Greek junta and executed by pro-enosis Greek Cypriots and mainland Greek troops. The Ankara government feared that unless it intervened, the Greek junta led by Ioannidis would soon declare the island a province of Greece, and that the Turkish Cypriots, who constituted 20 per cent of the population, could become an insignificant minority within Greece. Since 1974 there have been numerous UN resolutions calling for a settlement, and UN Secretaries General have initiated intercommunal talks at which leaders of both Greek and Turkish communities have sat down to discuss a settlement to achieve a united Cyprus. So far however these efforts have all been in vain. The Cyprus dispute, which has worried world public opinion since 1974, had actually been on the back burner since December 1963, and between then and 1974 the Greeks and the Turks had accused each other as well as the United States for being responsible for the continuation of the problem. The Greeks think that if it were not for the US, the UN could very well have supported the independence of Cyprus, meaning a Greek-dominated island which in the long run as Turks suspect would have united with Greece.1 The Turks believe that if in 1964 the United States had not prevented them from intervening, there would not have been a need for them to land on the island in 1974. They hold especially the so-called 'Johnson Letter', delivered on 5 June 1964 by the then US Ambassador to Ankara Raymond Hare to the late Prime Minister Ismet Inonii, responsible.2 The impact of the Johnson Letter was so powerful that most Turks considered it a solemn indication that the US controlled everything in Turkey, and that it even directed Turkish foreign policy. The Johnson Letter also gave