And then there’s Cyprus

Amid the burning problems of Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, and others, surrounding Turkey, not many people noticed that this year marked the 40th anniversary of the Cyprus Peace Operation of July 20, 1974. Once described as the “national issue” in Turkey, it no longer occupies the center stage in public discussions. Even the press coverage is scant and far between, starkly contrasted with the period between the 1960s and 1990s when almost 60 percent of all the international news in Turkish newspapers was about Cyprus. For the international community, too, the “Cyprus problem” has become one of the many nuisances that was inherited from the 20th century and remembered from time to time.

One of the milestones in the 60-year-old problem, the Cyprus Peace Operation was conducted by the Turkish Armed Forces in response to a coup d’état by Nikos Sampson against the legitimate government of the Cypriot Republic. In time, it became one of the diverging points between the two communities on the island: While Turkish Cypriots consider it as their salvation, Greek Cypriots perceive it as an occupation.

Let us remember: In 1974, Turkey exercised its right “to take action with the sole aim of re-establishing the state of affairs” under the fourth article of the Treaty of Guarantee, signed between the Republic of Cyprus, Turkey, Greece and the United Kingdom in August 1960. The power-sharing deal, envisioned in the original Zurich and London agreements, had already broken down in 1963 when inter-communal violence erupted. Two previous threats of intervention by Turkey in 1964 and 1967 were frustrated by the lack of Turkish military capacity to conduct an overseas operation and U.S. involvement, but were enough to deter...