The situation in Cyprus is certainly a very complex issue, with deeply rooted animosities. In order to understand the nature of division, and the reasons for the Turkish invasion, we have to take a look back into the history of the island itself and its people to understand why the situation exists in the manner it does today, with Nicosia holding unfortunate distinction of being the last divided capital and city in Europe. In short, the division of the island and the Turkish military presence has been mostly economically detrimental to the Turkish controlled north, because it bears no formal diplomatic recognition, and no direct flights or travel to the north are allowed unless you are accessing it from Turkish territory, while the Greek controlled South is much better off economically due to tourism and trade. Since you said you wanted to know more, here is the long version!! Hope this helps.

In its vast and ancient history, the island of Cyprus has weathered many storms and many conquering peoples. This rich and varied contextual past, especially the transition from Ottoman control to British Imperial rule, and the aftermath of Cypriot independence, is the backdrop for the tragic violence of the early 1960’s, and the conditions leading to the Turkish invasion in 1974. The invasion solidified the division of the island’s majority ethnic groups, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, along ethno-nationalist lines. Cyprus remains mired within the hatred and distrust that were fostered amongst the island’s Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. This omnipresent ethnic strife and hatred between Greek and Turkish Cypriots was encouraged through a concerted effort by its former British colonial rulers, who sought to maintain their control over the strategically important territory.

The arbitrary ethnic distinctions that were created between the island’s majority Greek speaking, Orthodox Christians and the minority Turkish speaking Muslim population were first introduced under Ottoman rule in 1571 after their successful conquest of the island (Calame, 125). These distinctions were based upon religious and cultural affiliation (Calame, 125), and Greek Orthodox citizens of the island began to organize as an ethnic community under the leadership of the Orthodox Church, which served as their main outlet for political representation on the island (Calame, 126). For Turkish Cypriots, Ottoman rule proved to be a period in which they were a privileged minority due to their religious, cultural, and social alignment with the rest of the Ottoman Empire.

As Cyprus changed hands in 1878 and came under the administration of the British Empire, the imperial governors had to deal with the rise of nationalist sentiments within both ethnic communities. By 1955, Greek nationalists were openly campaigning for “Enosis”, or union with Greece, their perceived motherland (Calame, 126), with Turkish nationalists seeking similarly to overthrow the yoke of British rule in order to partition a piece of the island out for their ethnic community (Oktay, 232). In order to undermine the growing power of the nationalistic movements of the Greek Cypriot EOKA movement and the Turkish Resistance Organization (TMT), the British colonial rulers “…exploited the ethnic differences for their own ends” (Oktay, 232). One prime example of British divide and conquer tactics can be found in the memoirs of C.M. Woodhouse, a well-connected British intelligence agent in the 1950’s.

Woodhouse reflected upon a conversation with the British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan in which Macmillan “…was urging us to stir up the Turks in order to neutralize Greek agitation” (Hitchens, 43). After perceiving the popular Greek majority EOKA movement as a greater threat to their colonial rule, the British did what they had done many times before throughout the vast reaches of their Empire- they allied themselves with an ethnic minority in order to engender and stoke divisions between the local populations in order to “…employ intercommunal differences as a means of control” (Hitchens, 45). In employing and institutionalizing inequality in the balance of political and social power between the two ethnic groups, the conflict became an internal one based off of ethnic divisions as opposed to a conflict between a colonial power and its subjects. The British succeeded in deepening the rift between Greek and Turkish Cypriots by systematically placing the minority Turkish Cypriots in positions of power and institutional authority, and this is best characterized by the British training “…an exclusively Turkish mobile reserve to combat EOKA and [by] employing many more Turks in the police and auxiliary forces” (Hitchens, 46). It is clear that by institutionalizing favoritism of the minority “Turkish” population the British were attempting to shift the scope of the conflict away from one of colonial masters suppressing independence movements, to a conflict rooted in ethnic strife between two “incompatible” groups of peoples, who tellingly had never experienced intercommunal violence before 1955, even when their respective “homelands” of Greece and Turkey were on opposing sides during the WWI (Hitchens, 47). As Hitchens notes, “It was only when Turks put on British uniforms to oppose a popular movement that they were shot at by Greeks” (Hitchens, 47). As the British Empire continued its swift decline in the aftermath of WWII, it washed its hands of Cyprus upon granting it independence in 1960, leaving behind a perfect storm of rising nationalist sentiments, competing historical narratives in which both Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities saw themselves as marginalized minorities who held a rightful historical claim to the land itself, and the perception of historical and colonial injustices that were purposefully exacerbated under British rule.