MAKARİOS’UN 1967 SONRASI MİLLİYETÇİ PROPAGANDASININ SİLAHLI RUM MUHALİFLERE YAKLAŞIMI
ATTITUDES OF MAKARIOS’S POST-1967 NATIONALIST PROPAGANDA TOWARDS GREEK CYPRIOT ARMED OPPOSITION

Summary/Abstract: The Cyprus Question, which Türkiye treats as a national cause and which many states attach importance to as an international problem, has so far been an extensively studied topic in the literature with its different dimensions. Within these dimensions, the official Greek Cypriot propaganda carried out during the cleavage among Greek Cypriots in the process leading to the 15 July 1974 coup d'état has not been adequately addressed. This study aims to contribute to the literature by addressing this point. The study examines the new propaganda of the Greek Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios, who had to change tactics and put the Enosis propaganda in the background in order not to attract the reaction of Türkiye in 1967, and the way this propaganda treated the anti-Makarios armed Greek Cypriot groups that accused their leader as being a “traitor to the national cause”. The study benefited from the official archives of Cyprus, United Kingdom and the USA, and the Turkish and Greek Cypriot newspapers of the period, and followed a historical and qualitative document analysis method. The main finding of the study is that Makarios separated the fanatical groups who opposed him from the rest of the Greek Cypriot community by accusing them of "serving partition, not Enosis". Makarios was aware that Türkiye’s patience had reached the breaking point due to the violence against Turkish Cypriots during the 1963-1967 period. The continuation of these provocations would push Türkiye to intervene militarily. According to the Greek Cypriot leader, a "reasonable" citizen was the one who did not get impatient for the Enosis and did not provoke Türkiye. Thus, terrorists who did not fit this mold were "unreasonable".

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