The United States Role of the Occurrence of Violence in Cyprus

Abstract

Cyprus used to be under occupation of the foreign states for many centuries and sovereignty usually with few exceptions was not transferred peacefully. As it is well known, in the 19th century, use of force in international relations was seen as normal. In the 1878 however, transformation of sovereignty in Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire to the United Kingdom (UK) was by peaceful means. The UK ruled Cyprus mostly in peace until the uprising in 1931. The upheaval of the Greek Cypriots against the UK was to unite Cyprus with Greece (Enosis). The uprising was settled by violence and the constitutional rights suspended immediately. In 1955 when the riot of the Greek Cypriots occurred again this time the UK was successful to get support of Türkiye and the Turkish Cypriots and converted the anti-colonial struggle to the ethnic strife. Clearly, the occurrence of violence in Cyprus in 20th Century begun during the British period but it continued after the colonial period. Although the United States (US) refrained direct involvement to Cyprus problem it assisted to the formation of the Republic of Cyprus by 1960s. During the Cold War conditions, the US had to involve to the Cyprus problem because of two reasons: Firstly, in order to prevent a war between Türkiye and Greece, the two “motherlands” of the Turkish and Greek Cypriots; secondly to stop the violence between two local communities. In Washington DC the US leadership met with Greek and Turkish prime ministers in 1964 and they decided to solve the Cyprus problem forever. In Geneva the US representative had several meetings with the officials of Greece and Türkiye. There, the US former secretary of state offered his plan that included the use of violence for the dissolution of the Republic of Cyprus. The US plan could not be implemented at the time but after 10 years, its spirit became the source of the violence in Cyprus. In this study mainly the role of the US in occurrence of violence in the island will be studied.