GENEVA DECLARATION OF JULY 1974 ON CYPRUS

30 July 1974

 

            Following is the text of the declaration on Cyprus signed at Geneva on 30 July 1974, by the Foreign Ministers of Britain, Turkey and Greece:

 

            1. The Foreign Ministers of Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom held negotiations in Geneva from 25-30 July 1974. They recognized the importance of setting in train as a matter of urgency, measures to adjust and to regularize within a reasonable period of time the situation in the Republic of Cyprus on a lasting basis, having regard to the international agreement signed at Nicosia on 16 August 1960, and to resolution 353 of the Security Council of the United Nations. They were, however agreed on the need to decide first certain immediate measures.

            2. The three Foreign Ministers declared that in order to stabilize the situation the areas in the Republic of Cyprus controlled by opposing armed forces on 30 July 1974 at 22:00 hours Geneva time should not be extended. They called on all forces, including irregular forces, to desist from all offensive or hostile activities.

            3. The three Foreign Ministers also concluded that the following measures should be put into immediate effect;

            (a) A security zone of sizes to be determined by representatives of Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom in consultation with the United Nations Peace-Keeping Force on Cyprus (UNFICYP) should be established at the limit of the areas occupied by the Turkish armed forces at the time specified in paragraph 2 above. This zone should be entered by no forces other than those of UNFICYP, which should supervise the prohibition of entry. Pending the determination of the size and character of the security zone, the existing area between the two forces should be entered by no forces.

            (b) All the Turkish enclaves occupied by Greek or Greek Cypriot forces should be immediately evacuated. These enclaves will continue to be protected by UNFICYP and to have their previous security arrangements.

            Other Turkish enclaves outside the area controlled by the Turkish armed forces shall continue to be protected by an UNFICYP security zone and may, as before, maintain their own police and security forces.

            (c) In mixed villages the functions of security and police will be carried out by UNFICYP.

            (d) Military personnel and civilians, detained as a result of the recent hostilities shall be either exchanged or released under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross within the shortest time possible.

            4. The three Foreign Ministers, reaffirming that resolution 353 of the Security Council should be implemented in the shortest possible time, agreed that within the framework of a just and lasting solution acceptable to all parties concerned and as peace, security and mutual confidence are established in the Republic of Cyprus, measures, should be elaborated which will lead to the timely and phased reduction of the number of armed forces and the amounts of armaments, ammunition and other war material in the Republic of Cyprus.

            5. Deeply conscious of their responsibilities as regards the maintenance of the independence, territorial integrity and security of the Republic of Cyprus, the three Foreign Ministers agreed that negotiations, as provided for in resolution 353 of the Security Council, should be carried on with the least possible delay to secure (a) the restoration of peace in the area, and (b) the re-establishment of constitutional government in Cyprus.

            To this end they agreed that further talks should begin on 8 August 1974, at Geneva. They also agreed that representatives of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities should, at an early stage, participate in the talks relating to the constitution.

            Among the constitutional questions to be discussed should be that of an immediate return to constitutional legitimacy, the vice-president assuming the functions provided for under the 1960 Constitution.

            The Ministers noted the existence in practice in the Republic of Cyprus of two autonomous administrations, that of the Greek Cypriot community and that of the Turkish Cypriot community.

            Without any prejudice to the conclusions to be drawn from this situation, the Ministers agreed to consider at their next meeting the problem  raised by their existence.

            6. The three Foreign Ministers agreed to convey the contents of this declaration to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and to invite him to take appropriate action in the light of it.

            They also expressed their conviction of the necessity that the fullest co-operation should be extended by all concerned in the Republic of Cyprus in carrying out its terms.

 

Statement by the Foreign Ministers of Greece, Turkey and Britain

            The Foreign Ministers of Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland made it clear that the adherence of their Governments to the declaration of today’s date in no way prejudiced their respective views on the interpretation or application of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee or their rights and obligations under the Treaty.

PRESS COMMUNIQUE ON THE CYRPUS TALKS
ISSUED IN VIENNA ON AUGUST 2,  1975

 

            The third round of talks on Cyprus was held in Vienna from 31 July to 2 August 1975.

            Preliminary discussions were held on the powers and functions of a federal Government on the basis of the original Greek Cypriot proposals submitted at the first round, the Turkish Cypriot paper of 21 July and the more comprehensive paper presented by Mr. Clerides at this meeting. Further examination of this subject will continue in Nicosia with a view to a final discussion, together with the other aspects relating to the solution of the Cyprus problem, at the next round of talks. Mr. Denktaþ expressed his views on the comprehensive paper submitted by Mr. Clerides and also on his own proposals for a transitional joint Government submitted by him on 18 July (see S/11779). Mr. Clerides referred to his previous position in this regard.

            A discussion of the geographical aspects of a future settlement of the Cyprus problem took place. It was agreed that Mr. Clerides and Mr. Denktaþ would have further private talks on this subject prior to the fourth round of the Cyprus talks with a view to preparing the discussion of this matter which will take place at that time.

            In addition the following was agreed:

            1. The Turkish Cypriots at present in the south of the island will be allowed, if they want to do so, to proceed north with their belongings under an organized program and with the assistance of the United Nations Peace-Keeping Force in Cyprus.

            2. Mr. Denktaþ reaffirmed, and it was agreed, that the Greek Cypriots at present in the north of the island are free to stay and the they will be given every help to lead a normal life, including facilities for education and for the practice of their religion, as well as medical care by their own doctors and freedom of movement in the north.

            3. The Greek Cypriots at present in the north who, at their own request and without having been subjected to any kind of pressure, wish to move to the south, will be permitted to do so.

            4. The United Nations will have free and normal access to Greek Cypriots or villages and habitations in the north.

            5. In connection with the implementation of the above agreement, priority will be given to the reunification of families, which may also involve the transfer of a number of Cypriots at present in the south, to the north.

            The question of missing persons was also re-examined.

A NOTE ON ‘THE EXCHANGE OF
POPULATIONS AGREEMENT’ OF
2 AUGUST 1975

 

            The Turkish Cypriot side believes that the Agreement on the exchange of populations reached in Vienna on 2 August 1975, at the third round of the Intercommunal Talks, goes right to the heart of the matter in so far as the principle of bi-zonality and the vital consideration of security of the Turkish Cypriot community are concerned. It is furthermore believed that the attitude of the Greek Cypriot side on this subject is of crucial importance to progress in the bi-lateral negotiations, for it represents another test case for their adherence to the principle of ‘pacta sund servanda’, without which there is little or no chance of reaching a final settlement, let alone ensure its survival.

            It is unfortunate as well as discouraging that the attitude of the Greek Cypriot side on this question, if one may call it that, of the Population Exchange Agreement, has, from the beginning, been one of rejection, and been characterized by self-contradiction, valiant uncertainty, as well as outright demagoguery. To put it in another way, the Greek Cypriot side, in its attempt to deny the existence of this reality, or at best to modify it to suit its purposes, has always made known what it rejects in this respect, as opposed to what it accepts, yet failed to ascribe its own meaning to the Vienna III Agreement.

            Regarding the existence itself of the Agreement which emerged from the IIIrd Vienna meeting, which was at first challenged by the Greek Cypriot side, it will be recalled that the Secretary-General’s interim report to the Security Council, S/11789, dated 5 August 1975, which contains in its Annex the text of the communiqué issued on 2 August 1975 following the IIIrd Vienna meeting, contains clear and specific references to such an Agreement, while the second interim report of the Secretary-General, S/11789/Add.1 dated 10 September 1975, deals with the implementation of the agreement in unequivocal terms.

            In the face of this overwhelming evidence regarding the actual existence of the Agreement, one cannot take seriously the Greek Cypriot side’s rejection of it, or their attempt to misrepresent it by quibbling with its name and refusing to call it a ‘Population Exchange Agreement’. As it will be seen from the relevant part of the Vienna III communiqué of 2 August 1975, two main features appear which characterize the Agreement contained in that communiqué. These are:

(a) that there was agreement on a movement of Turkish and Greek Cypriots to the north and the south, respectively;

(b) That this would be done on a purely voluntary basis.

            The Turkish Cypriot side maintains that whether one wishes to call this a ‘Voluntary Population Exchange Agreement’ or any other appropriate name, is really a question of semantics rather than of substance. The facts are there for all to read, in the relevant paragraphs 1 and 3 of the Agreement, which read as follows in order of priority:

1. The Turkish Cypriots at present in the south of the island will be allowed, if they want to do so, to proceed north with their belongings under an organized program and with the assistance of UNFICYP.

3. The Greek Cypriots at present in the north who, at their own request and without having been subjected to any kind of pressure, wish to move to the south, will be permitted to do so.

            These two basic provisions, incidentally, were subsequently implemented as indicated in paragraph 4 of the Secretary-General’s second interim report No.S/11789/Ad.2 dated 13 September  1975, paving the way for a bi-zonal federal settlement of the Cyprus problem: ‘As of 7 September, 8033 Turkish Cypriot had moved with UNFICYP assistance, at their own wish, to the north, which completed that transfer operation.’ Then the paragraph goes on to state that, ‘In addition 149 Greek Cypriots had been permitted to move to the South’.

            The fact that the Turkish Cypriot side has quoted these two particular items of the Vienna III Agreement, should not be misconstrued as reluctance on its part to discuss the other items, namely 2, 4, and 5, but should be attributed to the fact that these paragraphs tend to deal more with detail, and individual cases of separated families, from a purely humanitarian point of view, as it will be seen from the following:

2. Mr. Denktaþ reaffirmed, and it was agreed, that the Greek Cypriots at present in the north of the island are free to stay and that they will be given every help to lead a normal life, including facilities for education and for the practice of their religion, as well as medical care by their own doctors and freedom of movement in the north.

4. UNFICYP will have free and normal access to Greek Cypriot villages and habitations in the north.

5. In connection with the implementation of the above agreement, priority will be given to the reunification of families, which may also involve the transfer of a number of Greek Cypriots, at present in the south, to the north.

            It must, incidentally, be stated at this juncture that the sentence ‘The question of displaced persons was also re-examined’, does not belong to the Agreement per se, as claimed by the Greek Cypriot side on previous occasions but to the general text of the Vienna III communiqué.

            A glance at the text of the communiqué will reveal that the part containing the Agreement is composed of 5 points, each being one paragraph, which starts immediately after the sentence ‘In addition the following was agreed:’ ending at the end of point 5, with the words ‘to the north’. Had the sentence concerning the displaced persons, which follows item 5, been part of the Population Exchange Agreement, this very item would not have referred to ‘the above agreement’.

            As it will be clearly observed from the following extracts chosen at random from various reports of the UN Secretary-General to the Security Council the Turkish Cypriot side has been loyal to its undertaking in respect of the above paragraphs:

 

1. Living conditions

 

UNFICYP continues to discharge humanitarian functions for the Greek Cypriots remaining in the north. Temporary visits to the south for family reasons have continued to be made possible on an ad hoc basis, both directly and through the good offices of UNFICYP.

(S/13369 dated 31 May 1979, para.28)

 

UNFICYP continues to discharge humanitarian functions for the Greek Cypriots remaining in the North. Temporary visits to the south for family reasons have continued to be made possible on an ad hoc basis, both directly and through the good offices of UNFICYP.

(S/13672 dated 1 December 1979, para.24)

 

2. Medical care

 

Medical care available to Greek Cypriots in the north is as good as that provided for Turkish Cypriots in that area. Greek Cypriots may obtain permission for temporary visits to the south in order to obtain medical treatment...

(S/12723 dated 31 May 1978, para.28)

 

Medical care available to Greek Cypriots in the north is as good as that provided to Turkish Cypriots in the same area. In few cases, Greek Cypriots have obtained permission for temporary visits to the south in order to receive medical treatment...

(S/12946 dated 1 December 1978, para.35)

 

3. Freedom of religion

 

As indicated in my last report, there appears to be no restriction on freedom of worship in the north wherever the services of a priest are available.

(S/12723 dated 31 May 1978, para.32)

No restrictions on freedom of worship in the north have been reported for the period under review.

(S/13369 dated 31 May 1979, para.34)

 

4. UNFICYP access

 

UNFICYP continues to have access to Greek Cypriot habitations in the north. Officers making liaison visits, in performance of humanitarian tasks, continue to have the opportunity to speak with Greek Cypriots there in privacy.

(S/12946 dated 1 December 1978, para.15)

 

5. Education

 

Two Greek Cypriot primary schools are operating in the north. Both are in the Karpas area: One in Ayia Trias and the other in Rizokarpaso.

(S/12723 dated 31 May 1978, para.29)

 

6. Transfers

 

All transfers continue to be monitored by UNFICYP to ensure that they have been undertaken voluntarily.

(S/13369 dated 31 May 1979, para.29)

 

...Transfers continue to be monitored by UNFICYP to ensure that they have been undertaken voluntarily...

(S/14490 dated 27 May 1981, para.23)

 

            It should also be pointed out here that the Turkish Cypriot side has met its humanitarian commitments regarding the transfer of ‘a number of Greek Cypriots, at present in the south, to the north,’ as envisaged by paragraph 5 of the Agreement, for the sake of reunification of separated families. It could not have been expected from the Turkish Cypriot side, however, to clear every single Greek Cypriot application in this respect, particularly in view of the fact that there were attempts to infiltrate ex-EOKA terrorists into the Turkish Cypriot zone, in the guise of ‘reunification of families’. Furthermore, many of the applicants were found to have taken part in atrocities committed against Turkish Cypriots during the events of 1974 and/or earlier, and their entry into this zone would have no doubt created public reaction and been of mutual danger to both sides.

            What is perhaps more significant here, however, is not whether the Turkish Cypriot side has adhered to its commitments in respect to items 2, 4, and 5 of the IIIrd Vienna Population Exchange Agreement, for it has clearly done so, but that the Greek Cypriot side is attempting to exaggerate and extend the meaning of the above mentioned paragraphs beyond that of humanitarian considerations, particularly that of paragraph 2, as if it were the dominant feature of the entire Agreement, and moreover, as if it conflicts with the concept of a voluntary Population Exchange Agreement. This attempt is apparent in previous assertions by the Greek Cypriot side that the main purpose of the Vienna III Agreement was ‘to improve the living conditions of Greek Cypriots remaining in the North, to secure protection for them and to provide for the return of the Greek Cypriot refugees to the North’.

            It is indeed puzzling to the mind to hear the Greek Cypriot side claim the above, on the one hand, and thus praise the Agreement, and to assert, on the other, that this Agreement was reached ‘under the threat of a military operation’. Is one to assume from these two conflicting views that Turkey or the Turkish Cypriot side had threatened ‘military action’ in order to ‘improve the living conditions of the Greek Cypriots in the North, to secure protection for them and to provide for the return of the Greek Cypriot refugees to the North’?

            It should at this juncture be categorically stated that the Turkish Cypriot side is not aware of any published minutes of the IIIrd Vienna meeting, which the Greek Cypriot side is endeavoring to present as proof of their ‘threat of a military operation’ claim. However, the text of the communiqué which was published on 2 August 1975 at the end of that meeting is so clear as to require no interpretation; needless to say, the communiqué contains no reference to a threat of a military operation, limited or otherwise; nor is there any reference to such a threat in any of the relevant reports of the UN Secretary-General.

            But perhaps  what provides the most eloquent proof of the invalidity of the ‘threat of a military operation’ rhetoric, is the concept of ‘voluntariness’, which is prevalent in the whole text of the Vienna III Agreement, particularly in items 1 and 3, to which concept the Turkish Cypriot people remaining in the south have responded unanimously, by opting to move, with the assistance of UNFICYP, to the north en masse. (Cf. Secretary-General’s second interim report, S/11789 Add.2 dated 13 September 1975.)

            Incidentally, it was these very Turkish Cypriots who had hitherto been kept in the south by armed force against their will, as virtual hostages for over a year. Those who attempted to cross to the north, in defiance of the illegal ban put on their freedom of movement, had to leave their belongings behind and did so at the risk of every kind of punishment, including murder, at the hands of the Greek armed elements.

            On 25 June 1975, for instance, forty-eight Turkish Cypriots, including women and children, who were attempting to cross to the Turkish Cypriot zone, were ambushed by Greek Cypriot Police and soldier, were severely beaten up and turned back. Further back, on 13 March 1975, a Turkish Cypriot woman was seriously wounded and her four-month-old baby was riddled with bullets from an automatic weapon fired by a Greek Cypriot mobile patrol, who had ambushed them while attempting to make their way to the north. The baby died in her mother’s arms. Still, on 12 November 1974, two Turkish Cypriot women, one young girl and two small children were robbed and subsequently murdered in cold bloody by a Greek taxi driver, whom they had paid £300 in order to be transported to the north. It is tragic as well as revealing, that in his admission of guilt, the culprit is quoted as saying ‘I killed them all. They were women and children, but they were Turks.’

            The above concrete cases are not quoted for the purpose of re-opening wounds, as it were, for the Turkish Cypriot side is certainly not the one to exploit the suffering of people; but to indicate once more under what tragic yet real conditions the Population Exchange Agreement had come into being. No play on words will suffice to change these realities, and it was this realization that served as the basis of the four-point Guidelines of 12 February 1977, agreed between President Denktaþ and the late Archbishop Makarios, which envisage the establishment of an independent, bi-communal, bi-zonal federal republic, as a means of ensuring the peaceful co-existence of the two communities. It will thus serve no useful purpose to try to go back on these Agreements, which offer the best, indeed the only hope, for a peaceful and lasting solution in Cyprus.

            It would be misleading as well as irrelevant to attempt to compare, as the Greek Cypriot side has done on previous occasions, the case of, that they call, ‘200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees’, with that of ‘the movement of 8033 Turkish Cypriots to the north’. For one thing, the number of Greek Cypriots displaced as a result of the events of 1974 could not possibly have been 200,000. Evidence shows that their number is far below that. Mr. Criton Tornaritis, the Attorney-General of the Greek Cypriot Administration, for instance, indicates in his pamphlet entitled ‘Legal Aspects of the Problem of Refugees in Cyprus’ that the entire Greek population of the north did not exceed 129,000 prior to the events of 1974.

            Secondly, the 8,033 Turkish Cypriots who were transported to the north in 1975 as a result of the Population Exchange Agreement, are but a small fraction of the total number of the displaced Turkish Cypriots, both after the events of 1974 and/or prior to that. Approximately 90,000 Turkish Cypriots in all have been displaced since the inception of the Greek Cypriot campaign for Enosis; about 25,000 between 1963-74, and 65,000 more since the events of 1974. When one considers that there are still Turkish Cypriots not given proper or any housing in the north, it becomes evident that the buildings evacuated by Greek Cypriots in the north in 1974, could not have possibly been the homes of 200,000 people, even when one allows for some houses that were destroyed or damaged in fighting or as a result of natural causes.

            Meanwhile, however, it should not be forgotten that it was not the Turkish Cypriot side who destroyed all bridges of co-operation between the two communities during the 1963-74 period, and made mixed living in the Island a veritable impossibility. Perpetrators of the present separation cannot blame the Turkish Cypriot community today, or Turkey who came to the aid of the Turkish Cypriots at the last moment, for what they call the ‘expulsion’, ‘compulsory evacuation’, or ‘further expulsions’ of Greek Cypriots from the north.

            Had it been the intention of the Turkish Peace Operation to evict Greek Cypriots from the north, how is it, one may ask, that the several thousand Greek Cypriots who remained in the Turkish Cypriot zone after the fighting, were completely unharmed by the Turkish Forces? How is it, also, that those who subsequently left the north, did so on their own request, as UNFICYP is in a position to confirm, and as is indicated in the aforementioned extracts from the relevant UN reports?

            It seems that the causes of people leaving their homes in 1974, both Turkish and Greek Cypriots, are more deeply rooted than the Greek Cypriot side would like to believe, or is prepared to admit. They can be found in the psychology of the recent past, which manifested itself in the form of ‘fear’ on the part of the Turkish Cypriots for what they had undergone; and in the form of ‘fear of revenge’ on the part of the Greek Cypriots, for what they had done to the Turkish Cypriots for 11 years.

            Whatever the reasons are, however, what is relevant at present is the mutually agreed Guidelines which the two sides have before them as the framework formula of a future settlement. It cannot be disputed that the Population Exchange Agreement, which paved the way for a side-by-side existence of the two communities as the feasible alternative of living intermingled, served as the basis of these Guidelines.

            The Greek Cypriot side’s intensified efforts, of late, to deny the existence of the Population Exchange Agreement, or at best to alter its spirit beyond recognition as a series of individual humanitarian undertakings, do not at all coincide with the principle of pacta sunt servanda, as was pointed out at the beginning, and moreover cast serious doubts on the intention of the other side to show good faith in respect of any future agreement. Coupled with similar disappointments of the past, particularly the disloyalty shown by the Greek Cypriot leadership to the 1960 Agreements, which is well known, the attitude recently displayed by the Greek Cypriot side in respect of the Population Exchange Agreement is undoubtedly a serious threat to the progress in, and the future success of, the negotiations. It is, therefore, hoped that the Greek Cypriot side will abandon this attitude and start adhering to its agreed commitments, in the interest of the success of the negotiating process and peaceful solution.