Greek-Turkish Conflict over Cyprus

Bibliographic Data

ID4290963
AuthorsGlen D Camp (corresponding author)
Year1980
Volume95
Issue1
Pages43-70
Publication date1980-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Science Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-3195 • E-ISSN: 1538-165X
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2149584
OpenAlexW2323775040
LanguageEN
Citations received9

The island of Cyprus has always been at the center of strategic trade routes, always athwart invading empires. The factor, as Cypriots term the impact of foreign power upon their lives, began in the Bronze Age (ca. 2300-1050 B.C.) when copper production transformed Cyprus into a center of commercial importance in the eastern Mediterranean. By the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600 B.c.), Cyprus had become a focus of international politics. Assyrian and Egyptian control lasted from 800 to 550 B.C.; Persian from 500 to 322 B.C.; Hellenistic from 322 to 58 B.C. Alexander was succeeded by Romans, Byzantines, Lusignans, and Venetians. Turks ruled Cyprus from 1571 until the British came in 1878, and England's imperial control lasted until the Zurich and London Accords of 1959-60 established the Republic of Cyprus. From 1960 until the Turkish interventions of 1974, Cyprus experienced a tumultuous independence marked by clashes between Greek Cypriots, who make up about 80 percent of the population, and Turkish Cypriots, who make up about 18 percent. Though Greeks are clearly a dominant majority on Cyprus, Turks are less clearly but equally a dominant majority in the eastern Mediterranean region.1 The adroit diplomacy of Archbishop Makarios III, first president of the Republic of Cyprus, was but the latest example of an illustrious Byzantine tradition. Yet serving as both archbishop and president, Makarios was trapped by' that very tradition. In the end he failed to separate church and state, unable to resolve the dilemma of serving Greek Cypriots as religious ethnarch while serving all Cypriots as secular president.2 Yet if Makarios, born and bred on

Ancient history · Archbishop · Geography · Greeks · Independence (probability theory) · Political science · Politics · State (computer science) · Turkish · Classics · Cyprus History, Politics, Society · Global Energy Security and Policy · History · Law · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics

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