Makarios III

The issue of Cyprus' accession to NATO is an old but very bitter one due to the mistakes made and the distortions it reveals in political culture.

On Friday July 19, 1974, 30-year-old pilot Adamos Marneros was glued to his television screen in London. The British networks, first and foremost the BBC, were constantly relaying information about an imminent Turkish invasion of Cyprus, just four days after the Greek military junta-backed coup against Cypriot President, Archbishop Makarios III.

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides condemned Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar's rejection of a proposed UN meeting, calling it a sign of disrespect toward both the Turkish Cypriot community and the international community.

According to the conventional interpretation of the events that transpired in 1973-1974, it was not the Polytechnic Uprising that actually precipitated the military dictatorship's downfall but the Turkish invasion of Cyprus eight months later, which was prompted by the overthrow of the Cypriot government of Archbishop Makarios III by Dimitrios Ioannidis' regime in Athens.

Speaking at a TV interview, two former hitmen of the Greek Cypriot terror organization EOKA have confessed to killing some 68 Turks and "throwing them into a pit" in the 1960s.

"We killed 10 Turks for each lost Greek Cypriot," Neoptolemos Leftis and Athos Petridis, who are in their 80s today, told the Omega TV on May 26.

The presidency is an important position for overcoming the "frozen uncertainty" in Cyprus and "the deadlocked problem can be solved with more creative and new ideas," according to a top Turkish Cypriot politician.

At 6 a.m. on July 20, 1974, Turkish troops stormed into the Republic of Cyprus in accordance with Article III of the Treaty of Guarantee of the first constitution of 1960. This mandated each of the guaranteeing parties - Greece, Turkey and Great Britain - "to take action with the sole aim of re-establishing the state of affairs" if that were ever threatened.

The Church of Cyprus has a definitely far limited clout on politics compared to the Makarios period when the Archbishop was the "national leader" and the president of the state at the same time.

Rare and beautiful works of art by some of the most important Greek painters of the 19th and 20th centuries will be up for auction in the Cypriot capital on Wednesday, May 10.

For totally different reasons, the two peoples of Cyprus consider the status quo as unacceptable. To heal any condition, there is an absolute need to make a proper prognosis and an accurate diagnosis. What is the Cyprus problem? Before this question is adequately and accurately answered, a resolution will not be possible.