[MGSA-L] Declassified UK documents reveal Greece planned Cyprus invasion in 1983

June Samaras june.samaras at gmail.com
Wed Jul 8 11:31:41 PDT 2015


Declassified UK documents reveal Greece planned Cyprus invasion in 1983

http://world.bgnnews.com/declassified-uk-documents-reveal-greece-planned-cyprus-invasion-in-1983-haberi/7465
An armed confrontation between Greek and Turkish soldiers on the island of
Cyprus was a real possibility as recently as 1983, declassified documents
have revealed.

Papers released in London show that Greece’s then Prime Minister Andreas
Papandreou was prepared to send troops to divided Eastern Mediterranean
island after the Turkish community unexpectedly declared an independent
state in the north.

He made the offer of military support to Spyros Kyprianou, the then leader
of the Greek-Cypriot administration, at an emergency meeting in Athens just
hours after the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was proclaimed
on Nov. 15, 1983.

Kyprianou flew to London for discussions with British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher.

A memo of their conversation is one of a number of Foreign Office documents
that were made public last week.

“He [Kyprianou] had been told that if he felt that Greek troops should go
to Cyprus, and he so requested, the Greek Government was ready to meet his
request,” the declassified note said.

Thatcher’s concern

Kyprianou was worried that if Greece’s offer of military assistance was
made public there could be “great difficulties” that could cost him his
job, adding: “It might appear that Greece was prepared to go to the bitter
end.”

The note continued: “If the news leaked that the Greek prime minister had
offered to send troops to Cyprus - and [Kyprianou] then had to say that he
was still studying the offer - he would be forced to resign.”

Thatcher is recorded as commenting that such action would be “a very big
decision” and that “the hazards of military intervention should be avoided”.

According to James Ker-Lindsay, a senior research fellow on politics in
southeast Europe at the London School of Economics, the declassified
documents offer an insight into events following the Turkish Cypriot
declaration of independence, which came after eight years of failed
negotiations following a Greek-Cypriot coup in 1974 and subsequent Turkish
military intervention.

“It is a terribly interesting revelation about potential Greek troops but
it doesn't quite stack up,” he said.

Hawkish Papandreou

“[Papandreou] was hawkish, no doubt about it, but a military response seems
to be a very odd reaction. What did he want to do with the troops - to go
and take back the north or to keep them in the south?

“I think Kyprianou was using it to increase the pressure on London to act -
which they clearly already were by lobbying other countries not to
recognize the TRNC.”

Kyprianou’s decision to keep Greece’s offer of military support secret may
have prevented the deployment of Greek troops on the island’s south.
Turkish troops have been stationed in the north since 1974.

“There was a strong feeling in Greece that, following Greece’s inadequate
response to the events of 1974, inaction or indifference on the part of the
present Greek government would not be tolerated by public opinion,”
reported the note of the meeting between Kyrianou and Thatcher two days
after the TRNC was declared.

It continued: “[Kyprianou] was not suggesting that the Greeks felt stronger
than the Greek-Cypriots but if the quick reversal of the Turkish-Cypriot
move was not achieved, it was apparent from his talks with the Greek
government that they were seriously considering severing diplomatic
relations with Turkey.”

Attempts to prevent recognition

The new-born republic in northern Cyprus was heralded by Rauf Denktaş, the
founding president, as giving Cypriot-Turks equal status in negotiations
over Cyprus’s future.

But only Turkey offered diplomatic recognition to the fledgling country
while the outside world rallied behind a swift UN Security Council
resolution that called the declaration of independence “legally invalid”.

The declassified papers also revealed several nations were preparing to
recognize the TRNC - something that caused concern in Britain, the island’s
former colonial power. The concerns were great enough for the foreign
secretary of the time, Geoffrey Howe, to instruct British diplomatic
missions to lobby six Muslim-majority countries against recognizing the new
state.

In a diplomatic note sent to British ambassadors in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, Malaysia, Libya and Bangladesh on Nov. 18 - a day after Kyprianou’s
meeting with Thatcher - he wrote: “Unless you consider it would be
counterproductive to do so, please approach the government to which you are
accredited at a time you consider appropriate and encourage them not to
recognize a ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’.”

July 7, 2015 | AA | London
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-- 
June Samaras
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-- 
June Samaras
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : june.samaras at gmail.com
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