You are a bit misinformed so let me try to make it clearer.

Submitted by Alexandros (United Kingdom), Aug 18, 2014 at 05:38

You are referring to a plan supposedly called Iphaistos, a plan that was against the Turkish Cypriots and designed in 1974! This is misinformation on so many ways. First of all the Cypriot problem goes back after the end of the second world war, when the Cypriots make their stand against the British, until then Turkey has shown no interest on the island whatsoever.

When the British see that they are losing and they can't keep the island under British authority they are trying to provoke Turkey against the Cypriots, by telling them that if Cyprus joins the rest of Greece, which was the normal thing, 85% of the population were Greeks and the Turkish Cypriots were not opposing to such a thing, then Turkey would be surrounded.

After this the British probably asked the help of the Americans on that matter as well. The White House released the plans of Henry Kissinger, which he made in 1957, if i am not mistaken by a couple of years, where he designed a Turkish invasion and Turkey controling part of the Island, actually the exact same, which is currently under occupation! In the meantime the Turks found willing Turkish Cypriots nationalists and especially people that had political aspirations and organised Turkish Cypriots militias (TMT), armed and controlled by Turkey. It is important to say at this momment that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots were living in the whole island even in mixed villages!

Those militias were creating a lot of problems and were pretty much terrorising the Greek population, as a result there were occasional Greek responses, even though, the Turkish Cypriot militias, were not such a big threat and therefore there wasn't a real constant conflict! Even though, what was happening was exploited by the British, who didn't want to lose their existence in the island and by the Turks, with the help of America, because America supported Turkey which was bordering with Soviet Union, thus was seen as a very important ally, on a diplomatic level and after several meetings, the diplomatic negotiations ended with the treaty of London in which the Turkish Cypriot minority gained unprecedented benefits, not even the Turkish diplomats could believe what they gained, in their own words!

In any case, that meant that Cyprus could never join Greece and that had as a result the Greeks to divide, to those who still wanted the unification and to those who didn't. Although the gainings, the Turks didn't stay quite and they kept planning the invasion, an invasion which was stopped twice until 1974, with proper fighting. The plan you are referring to "Iphestos" wasn't a plan of the government, it was a plan of one or two officers, a plan that was presented to both Makarios and the Greek government and a plan that was immediately disapproved and not even thought about! I am sure you understand that every army has very fanatic officers! But the Greeks were never willing to commit the crimes they were victims before! In the contrary the Turks proceeded with their plan!

But the Americans have a huge responsibility in what happened, but not only them, many Greek politicians have a huge responsibility as well. In 1967 there was a coup in Greece, a coup not supported immediately by America, but allowed to exist, since the officers in charge were right-wing officers. Although they needed the American support so to exist, they were very careful on what they were doind according to Cyprus. America was pushing them to overthrough Makarios, a politician they couldn't actually control, with a coup, but the didn't want to fall ointo the trap, becaue they realised that this would be an excuse by Turkey. Americans though managed to trick one of the officers, who made a coup on the coup and came in charge, he was promised that Cyprus will join Greece as long as Makarios was overthrown. He was stupid and he believed it, even though a wise and very rich Greek man that spoke with him once and the officer told him what he was promised, asked him, "why don't the Americans overthrough Makarios and set you to do it?".

In addition the Americans managed to get the approval of Karamanlis as well, who was promised to come back in Greece as a prime minister, since after an event like this and an invasion it would either be a total war between Greece and Turkey or the coup would have to fall! Turkey invaded using the coup as an excuse and they proceeded with the national cleansing and their continuous crimes on the island. That is what happened roughly and as much as such a complex issue be analysed in a comment. What Henry Kissinger has done is proven by the released files of the White House, Michalis Ignatiou and Kostas Benizelos have published an amazing book on Henry Kissinger's files, after struggling for a decade or more in the courts of the US!

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".