Cyprus History: From the Civil War to the Division of The Island
At the end of 1963 a real civil war broke out between the Greeks and Turks (on the initiative of the former). The UN in February 1964 decided to send its own emergency forces (UNFICYP), with little success. The coup d’état of April 1967 in Greece favored the cause of enosis, but exacerbated the relations between Makarios, proponent of the island’s independence, and the government of Athens which insisted on its irredentist action. In 1971 Grivas, with the support of the Greek military government, organized a terrorist campaign for enosis directed against the Makarios government. In 1974, shortly after Grivas’s death, Makarios formally asked Athens to withdraw its officers from the island’s national guard. These reacted by carrying out a coup d’etat (July 15); Makarios fled abroad, Nikos Sampson, a former EOKA terrorist, became president of the Republic. A few days after the formation of a philhellenic government in favor of enosis, Turkey, fearing for the autonomy of the Turkish Cypriot community, sent its own troops (20 July) who conquered a large territory in the northern part of the island. Sampson resigned and the presidency of the Republic was assumed by the moderate Glafkos Clerides.
As thousands of Greek Cypriots fled the occupied zone, UN intervention established a ceasefire. However, on 14 August, after the failure of the Geneva conference between Turkey, Greece and Great Britain, the Turkish forces resumed their advance; a new UN intervention stopped them when they had occupied ca. 40% of the island. In December Makarios returned to Cyprus and resumed the presidency of the Republic. However, the Turkish Cypriots, who effectively held control of the north of the island, in February 1975 they unilaterally declared the constitution of the Turkish federated state of Cyprus. Subsequently the two zones (the Turkish Cypriot North and the Greek Cypriot South) proceeded autonomously with the election of their own political bodies. According to paradisdachat, Rauf Denktash was elected president of the Turkish federated state of Cyprus (1976) – constituted in 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognized however only by Turkey) – and then reconfirmed in 1981, 1985 and 1990; Spýros Kyprianoú, who succeeded the presidency in 1977 after the death of Makarios, was confirmed president of the Greek Cypriots in 1978 and 1983, only giving up the post in 1988 to election of their own political bodies. Rauf Denktash was elected president of the Turkish federated state of Cyprus (1976) – constituted in 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognized however only by Turkey) – and then reconfirmed in 1981, 1985 and 1990; Spýros Kyprianoú, who succeeded the presidency in 1977 after the death of Makarios, was confirmed president of the Greek Cypriots in 1978 and 1983, only giving up the post in 1988 to election of their own political bodies. Rauf Denktash was elected president of the Turkish federated state of Cyprus (1976) – constituted in 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognized however only by Turkey) – and then reconfirmed in 1981, 1985 and 1990; Spýros Kyprianoú, who succeeded the presidency in 1977 after the death of Makarios, was confirmed president of the Greek Cypriots in 1978 and 1983, only giving up the post in 1988 to Georgios Vassiliou. In that same year, under the aegis of the UN, the two highest authorities resumed the dialogue suspended in 1985, but both this negotiation and subsequent ones did not lead to concrete results.
A resumption of negotiations took place in 1993 after the presidential elections, won by the right-wing leader Glafkos Clerides, reconfirmed, albeit by a narrow margin, also in 1998. The difficult re-election, confirmed in the ballot, in 1995 of Rauf Denktash as president the self-proclaimed Republic of Northern Cyprus testified to the dissatisfaction of the Turkish Cypriot population with its president. In the meantime, the nationalist radicalization of the two communities was confirmed once again with the change by the municipality of Nicosia of the name of the capital to the Greek one of Lefkōsía (1995). In 1997 the negotiations for Cyprus for the enlargement of the European Union saw Turkey among the candidates (the Greek part of the island recognized by the international community) and among the “frozen ones”, due to its lack of respect for human rights and the question Kurdish. In the Republic of Cyprus, on the other hand, the legislative elections of 2001 recorded the narrow victory of the AKEL communists over the center-right coalition of President Glafkos Clerides. At the Copenhagen summit in December 2002, the Republic of Cyprus concluded negotiations for accession to the EU. The presidential elections of 2003 awarded the victory to Tassos Papadopulos with 51.5% of the votes. Due to the opposition of the Turkish Cypriot leader, the UN proposal for a confederation between the two states failed in 2003. During the same year, the authorities of the Northern Turkish Republic decided to allow citizens to cross the border that divides the island. In the following year a referendum, proposed by the UN for the approval of a reunification plan for the island, failed due to the rejection of the Greek Cypriot component. In May of the same year the Republic of Cyprus joined the European Union. In February 2005, legislative elections were held in the Turkish Republic of the North, which were won by the party of Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Talat, the Republican Party (CTP), in favor of the reunification of the island and the entry into Europe, and in April the same premier was elected to the presidency of the republic.
In May 2006, legislative elections were held in the Republic of Cyprus, which AKEL won with 31.2% of the votes. On 1 January 2008 the country adopted the euro as its currency and in February presidential elections gave victory to Dimitris Christofias with 53.36% of the votes. In March, the wall that had divided the city of Nicosia for 44 years was reopened. In April 2009 the nationalist UBP party won the elections of the Turkish part of the island, while Dervis Eroglu defeated the outgoing president Mehmet Ali Talat in the presidential elections (April 2010). In May 2011, the elections were held, which were won by the center-right Democratic Ragging party (Disy) with 34.3% of the votes, while AKEL, the country’s second largest force, reached 32.6% of the votes. In February 2013, conservative Nikos Anastasiades won the presidential election. In March 2013, the country fell into a banking and monetary crisis, following the rejection of the rescue plan for the economy negotiated with the European Union.
