Cyprus

According to archaeological investigation and conjecture, the aboriginal inhabitants of Cyprus were Indo-European people who had a written language. Extensive excavation has shown that during the Neolithic and Bronze ages the Cypriots had an advanced civilization. Early History The recorded history of Cyprus begins with the occupation of part of the island by Egypt about or just before 1450 BC, during the reign of Thutmose III. In subsequent centuries seafaring and trading peoples from the Mediterranean countries set up scattered settlements along the coasts. The first Greek colony is believed to have been founded by traders from Arcadia about 1400 BC. The Phoenicians began to colonize the island about 800 BC. Beginning with the rise of Assyria during the 8th century BC, Cyprus was under the control of each of the empires that successively dominated the eastern Mediterranean. Assyrian authority was followed by Egyptian occupation (550 BC), then Persian (525 BC). During the Persian occupation King Evagoras I, ruler of the Cypriot city of Salamis, made the first recorded attempt to unify the city-states of Cyprus. In 391 BC Evagoras, with the aid of Athens, led a successful revolt against Persia and temporarily made himself master of the island. Shortly after his death, however, Cyprus again became a Persian possession. For almost a thousand years thereafter control of the island passed from empire to empire. Alexander the Great took Cyprus from Persia in 333 BC, and after his death in 323 BC the island again became an Egyptian possession, under the Ptolemies. Rome gained control in 58 BC. In 1191 Cyprus was seized by Richard I of England, who gave it to Guy of Lusignan, titular king of Jerusalem. The Lusignan dynasty built several large forts and castles, some of which are still standing. In 1489, Venice took control of Cyprus. Turkey captured the island in 1571 and held it until 1878, when it was defeated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and 1878 (see Russo-Turkish Wars). Fearing greater expansion by Russia, Turkey induced the British to administer Cyprus. British Administration The move served as a warning to Russia that any attempt to expand toward the Dardanelles would conflict directly with British interest. Under the enabling convention, signed by Turkey and Great Britain on June 4, 1878, the British received complete control of Cyprus for a rental of about $500,000 yearly, and Turkey retained nominal title. When the British administrators assumed office in 1879, they were presented with a petition from the archbishop and the Greek community calling for enosis (Greek, "union"), that is, the political amalgamation of Cyprus and the kingdom of Greece. The petition was denied. Because Turkey joined the Central Powers in World War I (1914-1918), Great Britain nullified the 1878 treaty in November 1914 and annexed Cyprus. The British government then offered Cyprus to Greece if Greece would agree to enter the war on the Allied side. Greece was given one week to decide, and when the decision was delayed, the British withdrew the offer. By the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), the peace arrangement imposed on the Turks after the war, Turkey formally recognized British possession of Cyprus. Two years later the island was made a crown colony. In 1931 resentment over government measures resulted in serious riots. The British suppressed the riots, abolished the legislative council, and banned all political parties. Shortly after World War II ended in 1945, the enosis issue again began to create tension in Cyprus, and in 1946 the British proposed constitutional reforms leading to self-government on Cyprus. Meanwhile a Communist-controlled Cypriot organization, the Progressive Party of Working People (Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou, or AKEL), proclaimed full support of the enosis movement. The AKEL attracted a considerable following. Growth of the Enosis movement In 1948 the bishop of Citium of Cyprus, Mihail Mouskos, later Makarios III, began to organize support for enosis through the Church of Cyprus to exclude Communist influence and to restore the temporal power of the church. In January 1950 the British refused his request for a plebiscite on enosis. When the church hierarchy polled the Greek community, however, 95.7 percent favored union with Greece. In October, Bishop Mouskos was elected archbishop primate of Cyprus, with the title Makarios III, and he soon became the recognized leader of the enosis movement. A British announcement that the strategic position of Cyprus made it impossible to discuss any change in the political status of the island was followed by a terrorist campaign against the British that was instituted by an underground movement of Greek Cypriots known as the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle (Ethniki Organosis Kypriakou Agonos, or EOKA). In August 1954 Greece, which had previously avoided involvement in the situation because of its alliance with Great Britain, unsuccessfully sought to have the question of Cyprus brought before the United Nations General Assembly. In the subsequent UN discussion, Turkey announced that it opposed the union of Cyprus with Greece and declared that if Great Britain withdrew from Cyprus, the island should revert to Turkey.  Early in 1955 the Cypriots intensified their terrorist campaign against the British. A British attempt to settle the dispute by conference with the foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey was unsuccessful. Early in 1956 the British government exiled Archbishop Makarios and the bishop of Kyrenia to the Seychelles Islands on the ground that the church leaders were responsible for the enosis demonstrations. The reaction in Cyprus to this move was so violent that the government declared a state of emergency. In early 1957 the UN General Assembly asked that negotiations be resumed. The EOKA leaders proposed a truce conditional on the release of Archbishop Makarios and the resumption of negotiations with him. The archbishop was released but was not permitted to return to Cyprus. Independence from Great Britain In June 1958 the British announced a plan to maintain the international status quo of Cyprus for seven years but to establish representative government and communal autonomy. Archbishop Makarios and the Greek and Turkish governments rejected the British plan, but on October 1 the British put a modified version of it into effect. Talks held in 1959 among the various parties led to an agreement on the general features of a constitution for an independent republic of Cyprus. The status of the republic was guaranteed by Great Britain, Turkey, and Greece. Great Britain retained sovereignty over two military bases. Archbishop Makarios, who returned to Cyprus on March 1, was elected president on December 13; Fazil Küchük, a Turkish Cypriot, became vice president. Independence was proclaimed on August 16, 1960. Cyprus was admitted to the United Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations.  In December 1963, Greek and Turkish Cypriots clashed after Makarios proposed constitutional changes, including abolition of the Turkish minority's power to veto laws in the legislature. Fighting spread over the island, with the Turkish Cypriots demanding partition while the Greek Cypriots insisted on a unitary state with minority rights safeguarded. After both Greece and Turkey threatened to intervene, full-scale civil war was forestalled by British troops; the UN appointed a mediator and organized a peace force to patrol the island. Acceptance of a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire on August 10, 1964, ended sharp fighting between the factions. Subsequent UN efforts to bring about a settlement failed, and bitterness between Greece and Turkey continued to increase. Makarios was reelected president in 1968 and 1973. Renewed tension in the early 1970s culminated on July 15, 1974, when Makarios was ousted from office and forced into exile by members of the Cypriot national guard who opposed his reluctance to unite the island with Greece. The national guard, which had close ties with the Greek government, installed Nikos Sampson, a newspaper publisher, as president, but he was replaced on July 23 by Glafkos Clerides, president of the Cyprus House of Representatives, after Turkish forces landed on the island. By late August, following fighting that left many people homeless, the Turks controlled the northern third of the island. In December Makarios returned to Cyprus and assumed the presidency. On February 13, 1975, a semi-independent Turkish Cypriot state was proclaimed in the Turkish-held sector. In April 1975 intermittent talks began under UN auspices to create a federal system with Greek and Turkish zones. The talks continued after Makarios died in 1977 and was succeeded by Spyros Kyprianou, who was reelected in February 1983. In November 1983 Rauf R. Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot president, proclaimed his community an independent republic called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), suspending all talks. George Vassiliou defeated Clerides and Kyprianou in the 1988 presidential elections. UN-sponsored talks resumed on an intermittent basis in 1988. In 1991 the UN passed a resolution urging the creation of a federal state made up of two politically equal communities. Cyprus hosted the Nonaligned Movement Conference in February 1992 and urged closer ties with Western countries. In the 1993 elections Vassiliou lost his presidential seat to Clerides, the candidate of the right-wing Democrat Rally party. In 1994 the European Union, dedicated to a unified Cyprus, ruled that all exports from Cyprus must have authorization from the official government, in effect banning direct trade with the TRNC. Later that year, the Turkish Cypriots passed two resolutions calling for the TRNC to coordinate its defense and foreign policy with that of Turkey and to demand political equality and additional autonomy from Greek Cyprus. In 1995 negotiations regarding Cyprus's entrance into the European Union were under way.