How Turkey's 1974 Cyprus Intervention Led to the Restoration of Greek Democracy

When it comes to the Cyprus question, most Westerners think the story began on July 20th, 1974 and treat Turkey as intervention as an isolated event. But history didn't start in 1974. It began to unravel in 1963. Following the end of British colonial rule, the Republic of Cyprus was established in 1960 with an equal partnership between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and backed by international guarantees. But Greek extremists were keen to pursue Enosis, literally meaning union in Greek, to forcibly unite Cyprus to Greece. By December 1963, the Bloody Christmas massacre against Turkish Cypriots marked the beginning of a decade of systemic violence.

Hundreds of Turkish Cypriots were killed, 103 villages were attacked, and tens of thousands were forced into tiny enclaves covering just 3% of the island. Meanwhile, a military junta seized power in Greece in 1967. On July 15th, 1974, that regime backed by EOKA-B terror group orchestrated a coup in Cyprus against President Archbishop Makarios III, replacing him with Nikos Sampson, a figure closely associated with the Enosis movement. On July 19, Makarios told the UN Security Council the coup was not an internal issue, but an invasion violating Cyprus' sovereignty. What has been happening in Cyprus since last Monday morning is a real tragedy.

The military regime of Greece has callously violated the independence of Cyprus without trace of respect of the democratic rights of the Cypriot people, without trace of respect of the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus. He asked the international community to put an end to the invasion and restore Cyprus' independence. For Turkey, the situation carried both legal and political implications. with the Turkish Cypriot community facing immediate threats. Turkey acted under 1960 Treaty of Guarantee and launched the Cyprus Peace Operation on July 20th, 1974. Sampson later admitted that without Turkey's intervention, he would have annihilated the Turkish Cypriots. Beyond

Cyprus, the intervention had a profound unexpected outcome, the fall of Greece's seven-year military dictatorship exposed by its inability to respond or defend. The junta lost all credibility and collapsed four days into Turkey's intervention. And on July 24th, civilian rule returned to Athens. The very event remembered as a national trauma became the catalyst that restored Greek democracy. Since 1974, Cyprus has experienced none of the bloodshed that plagued it in the 1960s. Erasing the decade before July 1974 distorts history and hides a vital truth. The operation that secured peace in Cyprus was the very event that brought democracy back to Greece.