Cyprus-Forum.com

[paliometoxo]

A first bunch of declassified Foreign Office documents about Cyprus from early 1977 released this week after the expiry of the 30-year statutory period, reveal President Makarios in earnest search of a solution while the Turkish Cypriot leadership under Rauf Denktash sought to exploit even his death for their partitionist aims.

In May 1977 the British High Commissioner in Nicosia Donald Gordon in a briefing note to the Foreign Office wrote that Makarios "constituted the best hope for a solution."

Returning home from the Commonwealth Conference in London and after stopping in Athens for talks with the Greek Prime Minister Constantinos Karamanalis, Makarios appeared cautiously optimistic that the USA might undertake some initiative together with other countries for the solution of the Cyprus problem.

According to the British documents, Makarios’ two "historical meetings", as they are described, with Rauf Denktash and the tabling of a territorial map by the then interlocutor Tassos Papadopoulos at the Vienna talks, showed that Makarios was determined to negotiate a solution.

Nevertheless, in one of the documents it is claimed that the map was submitted after Clark Clifford, special envoy of the US President Jimmy Carter, exercised pressure on Makarios.

Suspended

The documents have a lot to say about an article by American journalist C.L. Sulzberger, published in the New York Herald Tribune on January 26, in which Archbishop Makarios indirectly acquitted the Americans of any involvement in the coup against him. Moreover, Makarios presented the Americans more or less as his benefactors for warning him about assassination plots against him.

The British diplomats interpreted this article as an attempt by Makarios to pacify Washington at a time when he planned to ask for Carter’s support.

The British High Commissioner and other Western diplomats were rather pessimistic about the attitude of the Turkish side in any attempt at a solution.

When Makarios died on August 3, 1977, Ankara and Denktash unleashed a campaign to equate Makarios’ successor with the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry and Denktash sent messages to London, arguing that there could be no elections for a new president of the Cyprus Republic according to the 1960 Constitution, because various of its provisions had been suspended.

According to a document of the British Prime Minister’s Office dated August 9, 1977, Prime Minister James Callaghan had read a message in which Denktash expressed the wish that "the British Government and the West in general might officially accept the existence of two autonomous administrations in Cyprus."

And the document added: "The Prime Minister said that we cannot do this."

In another document the Foreign Office advises the British High Commission in Nicosia how to deal with the Turkish argument against the election of a new Cyprus president.

"The fact that some provisions have been suspended does not mean that all the provisions must be suspended," the Foreign Office said, and continued: "We fully understand that the Turks and the Turkish Cypriots consider the current situation unjust. But there are many unjust aspects about the current situation in Cyprus, like for instance the fact that the Turkish military forces have occupied on behalf of the Turkish Cypriots, who constitute 20% of the Cyprus population, almost 40% of the island."

Out of 70 files relating to Cyprus in 1977, 11 have been withheld, including the file on Makarios’ death and probably that of the Makarios-Denktash agreement.

[phoenix]

Our much maligned mentor Makarios worked to the bitter end to solve the problem exploited by the Turk-TCs.

It's really unsettling that he had rallied so much support for a rightful solution, and then by some sad twist of fate died.

I hate those Turks . . . somehow they always manage to prevent justice being served. But all their turkeys will come home to roost one day and they are going to suffer all the evils that they have inflicted on their neighbours.

[shahmaran]

In your dreams loser!

[utu]

Our much maligned mentor Makarios worked to the bitter end to solve the problem exploited by the Turk-TCs.

It's really unsettling that he had rallied so much support for a rightful solution, and then by some sad twist of fate died.

I hate those Turks . . . somehow they always manage to prevent justice being served. But all their turkeys will come home to roost one day and they are going to suffer all the evils that they have inflicted on their neighbours.

This sounds definitely like the real Phoenix...

[zan]

What a contradiction.......How come the statement says that the Dentas/Makarios agreement existed but Denktas didn't want a solution.....There was an agreement for gods sake Makarios died just before they signed it so there would have been a solution had he lived.

[paliometoxo]

very cnvenient for the turkish that he died and the turks got what they wante ( parition )

[RebelWithoutAPause]

In your dreams loser!

Your mum's a loser.

[phoenix]

What a contradiction.......How come the statement says that the Dentas/Makarios agreement existed but Denktas didn't want a solution.....There was an agreement for gods sake Makarios died just before they signed it so there would have been a solution had he lived.

Here take a look at Piratis's excellent definitions of solution and agreement:

Bananiot, confuses an agreement with a solution.

The two not only are not necessarily the same but they can be opposite.

In order for an agreement and a solution to mean the same thing it would mean that the agreement would actually solve the problem.

The Annan plan solved the problem that TCs had and then some. So they voted "yes" to it. But not only it didn't solve our problem, but it made it bigger, so we voted "no" to it. Simple really.

I guess it all depends on what each ones problem is. If for example you don't care much about Cyprus as a whole and you have property in that 7% that maybe would be returned, then maybe you would gamble your country, and if you were lucky and you got back that property of yours then you would sell it as fast as possible and move out of Cyprus before everything collapses.

However that kind of gamble is a possibility only among a minority of people, and above all most Cypriots care about their country as a whole and would not like themselves and their children to grow up in an undemocratic, unstable and bankrupt Banana Republic.

Instead of having 2/3rd of Cyprus as a bankrupt "constiduent state" without an international voice and with the rest 1/3rd of Cyprus officially Turkified, we would rather have 2/3rd of Cyprus as the free part of a real state, which is economically sound, democratic and with an international voice, while at the same time maintaining our rights over the other 1/3rd of our island, something which will have a very real value when the balance of power will change.

[zan]

What a contradiction.......How come the statement says that the Dentas/Makarios agreement existed but Denktas didn't want a solution.....There was an agreement for gods sake Makarios died just before they signed it so there would have been a solution had he lived.

Here take a look at Piratis's excellent definitions of solution and agreement:

Bananiot, confuses an agreement with a solution.

The two not only are not necessarily the same but they can be opposite.

In order for an agreement and a solution to mean the same thing it would mean that the agreement would actually solve the problem.

The Annan plan solved the problem that TCs had and then some. So they voted "yes" to it. But not only it didn't solve our problem, but it made it bigger, so we voted "no" to it. Simple really.

I guess it all depends on what each ones problem is. If for example you don't care much about Cyprus as a whole and you have property in that 7% that maybe would be returned, then maybe you would gamble your country, and if you were lucky and you got back that property of yours then you would sell it as fast as possible and move out of Cyprus before everything collapses.

However that kind of gamble is a possibility only among a minority of people, and above all most Cypriots care about their country as a whole and would not like themselves and their children to grow up in an undemocratic, unstable and bankrupt Banana Republic.

Instead of having 2/3rd of Cyprus as a bankrupt "constiduent state" without an international voice and with the rest 1/3rd of Cyprus officially Turkified, we would rather have 2/3rd of Cyprus as the free part of a real state, which is economically sound, democratic and with an international voice, while at the same time maintaining our rights over the other 1/3rd of our island, something which will have a very real value when the balance of power will change.

A banana is the main course for a monkey!!!!

[boomerang]

What a contradiction.......How come the statement says that the Dentas/Makarios agreement existed but Denktas didn't want a solution.....There was an agreement for gods sake Makarios died just before they signed it so there would have been a solution had he lived.

Here take a look at Piratis's excellent definitions of solution and agreement:

Bananiot, confuses an agreement with a solution.

The two not only are not necessarily the same but they can be opposite.

In order for an agreement and a solution to mean the same thing it would mean that the agreement would actually solve the problem.

The Annan plan solved the problem that TCs had and then some. So they voted "yes" to it. But not only it didn't solve our problem, but it made it bigger, so we voted "no" to it. Simple really.

I guess it all depends on what each ones problem is. If for example you don't care much about Cyprus as a whole and you have property in that 7% that maybe would be returned, then maybe you would gamble your country, and if you were lucky and you got back that property of yours then you would sell it as fast as possible and move out of Cyprus before everything collapses.

However that kind of gamble is a possibility only among a minority of people, and above all most Cypriots care about their country as a whole and would not like themselves and their children to grow up in an undemocratic, unstable and bankrupt Banana Republic.

Instead of having 2/3rd of Cyprus as a bankrupt "constiduent state" without an international voice and with the rest 1/3rd of Cyprus officially Turkified, we would rather have 2/3rd of Cyprus as the free part of a real state, which is economically sound, democratic and with an international voice, while at the same time maintaining our rights over the other 1/3rd of our island, something which will have a very real value when the balance of power will change.

A banana is the main course for a monkey!!!!

so zan what you having for desert then?