Why is Cyprus Divided? (Short Animated Documentary)

countries and being split into two name a more iconic duo and whilst germany ireland and korea are the most often discussed another country with such a divide is cyprus which since the 1970s has been divided into two parts or three if you count those that still belong to britain in the south sits the republic of cyprus recognised by everyone and in the north lies the turkish republic of northern cyprus which is recognised only by turkey and this state of affairs raises an obvious question what caused this to happen why is cyprus divided so before cyprus was split it was a british colony which they had acquired from the ottomans in 1878 and many of those living there were greek cypriots most of whom wish to unify with greece in a process known as anosys however that's not how empire works and the british opted to ignore them because cyprus's position was far too valuable to them many decades later like most british colonies in the wake of the second world war cyprus and its people pushed for independence in the mid-1950s greek cypriots began an armed campaign which wanted to end british rule there and unify the island with greece of course the british were happy to accept these demands and just kidding they teamed up with the turkish cypriots to fight back and in the end settled on giving cyprus his independence and britain preferred an independent cyprus that wasn't a part of greece since it wanted military bases there as a forward base for the middle east cyprus as a small new nation could be coerced into agreeing to this in return for the end of british rule whereas greece was a much larger established country that would be able to resist after the british had left the island well mostly tensions rose between the greek and turkish population there one of the conditions of cypriot independence was that the turkish minorities rights would be respected and also it was agreed that no one would push for a union with either greece or turkey nor try to partition the island and greece turkey and britain all agree to uphold this status despite the agreement many greek cypriots including president macarius felt that the turkish were overrepresented and so wanted that changed shockingly the turkish cypriots didn't want this and so a decade of impasse in 1974 feeling that macarius wasn't doing enough a group of the nurses-backing cypriots aided by the dictatorship in greece launched a coup macarios fled and nicos sampson was placed in charge and made it clear that he was going to unify cyprus with greece and now the turkish government was concerned for the welfare of turkish cypriots who were subject to growing violence and so ask britain to help them intervene and the british said no and for this they had two reasons the first was that they were too busy being poor and the second was that those in government above all else wanted to keep their military bases and thus by not picking aside it was hoped that they could leverage the fact that they didn't oppose the eventual winners to keep their territory on cyprus as a result turkey opted to proceed alone turkish troops landed here and they very quickly and easily pushed greek cypriot forces back across the island this was condemned by the united states who didn't want two nato members going to war and breaking the alliance but generally most countries were sympathetic to the turkish all of this embarrassed the military government in greece and fears over all that war led to the collapse of the regime there whilst the greeks were busy becoming a democracy again the turkish opted to push even further across cyprus at this point the rest of the world turned against turkey since this was now seen as little more than territorial expansion as such the turkish british and greek governments met to end hostilities and a ceasefire was agreed the turkish military stayed in the lands that it had taken and the united nations would construct a demilitarized zone running across the island and it was hoped that with the greek back coup over in the violence diminishing turkey would leave but fun fact no instead the turkish created the turkish cypriot administration which would run the territory the turkish had captured and in the wake of the creation of this administration many greek cypriots were forced out of their homes and cleared from the north and in the south many turkish cypriots were also made unwelcome and forced to head north and in 1983 the turkish cypriot government there made a unilateral declaration of independence which was condemned by everybody except for turkey pakistan and bangladesh and the last two were soon pressured into withdrawing their support leaving only turkey supporting the north but irrespective of international support the island still remains divided to this day i hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching with a special thanks to my patrons james bissonette kelly moneymaker corso wolfe jordan longley adam stalter jerry lambda in 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Channel: History Matters

Views: 2,121,351

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Id: 38NGVPw3UFw

Length: 4min 14sec (254 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 21 2022