Historic Background Of Cyprus

Cyprus is a country divided. Sandwiched between Africa in the south, Europe in the North and the Middle East on the other side, Cyprus has been prone to regular invasions.

Tossed from the Pheonicians to the Egyptians to Alexander the Great, Cyprus finally landed in the lap of the Romans around 58 BC and stayed there for about half a century – perhaps one of the longest periods of stability the region enjoyed in that era.

In the 7th century BC, Cyprus became the bone of contention between the Byzantines and the Moors. By the 15th century centuries the Venetians had Cyprus safely under their belt or so they thought. Not so, for the cantankerous Ottomans overthrew them, and ruled over this Mediterranean land for the next 300 years.

But by the 19th century, the colonizing British were busy amassing an empire, and they thought Cyprus would make a good addition to the colony club comprising India and much of Africa and in 1925, made it a crown colony of theirs. Their plans didn’t go as smoothly as they had hoped, for the long subdued Cypriots revolted against foreign domination.

But domestic divisions – namely the conflict between the Turkish population and the Greek – saw to it that peace would not come easy. The Greek people wanted that Cyprus should append itself to Greece after independence – something they called "enosis". But the Turks opposed this vehemently.

It was as late as 1960 that Cyprus got independence from the British, and a rickety government was formed with a Greek as president and a Turk as vice president.
Stability was far from achieved. Inter communal violence increased, divisions intensified and secessionist voices became louder and louder. In 1974, the Turkish national army invaded Cyprus and ultimately occupied the northern third of the island.

There have been ineffectual peace talks now and then, and Cyprus is even going to become a full member of the EU sometime soon. The south is being armed by France, Russia and the Czech Republic, while the north is building up arms from Turkish supplies.
Cyprus, sadly, is a country divided today and many strides will have to be made before a resolution can cease the fire raging across borders.