A Splinter in NATO's Flank

ALMOST A YEAR after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus the United States is still reluctant to focus on the reason behind the snarl in the eastern Mediterranean: a foreign army has deprived a republic--albeit just a splinter of land--of its independence and territorial integrity. When Turkish forces began landing on Cyprus last July 20, the official American response glibly called these maneuvers minor military actions. A corridor of land spanning Nicosia, the Cypriot capital, and Kyrania, another large northern city, had been taken before the Turks agreed to rechannel their pursuit of, as they phrased it, "political and military balance," into negotiations in Geneva. Only 18 per cent of the total population of Cyprus is Turkish, while 80 per cent of the island's people are Greek. Nonetheless, Turkey proposed to separate the two nationalities and reserve over a third of the land in Cyprus for the ethnic Turkish minority.

The delegation from Athens and Glafkos Clerides, the Greek Cypriot leader, received the plan coolly and asked for a short recess to talk it over with their governments. But the American State Department was more enthusiastic and didn't hesitate to show it during the lull. A department spokesman, Robert Anderson, insisted on the fairness of the Turkish position at a news briefing and seemed to be bolstering Ankara's stance with the timing of his comment, as well. A day later, on August 14, the Turkish army fanned over the island until its troops had hemmed in at least 40 per cent of Cyprus. Turkish officers aptly named the plan Attila, for the chieftan who had devastated the area centuries before.

The Ford administration has never questioned the partition of Cyprus. President Ford seems to believe that American security is tightly linked to other nations and their social structure and Cyprus--even Greece--seems less amenable to American interests than Turkey. Since the overthrow of the legitimate Cypriot government. NATO experts have visited Turkish occupied territory to study the possibility of setting up NATO bases there; President Makarios had resisted similar plans in 1964. Ford contends that Turkey's location is "critical" because, along with Iran, it seals the Soviet Union from the Arab oil producers.

Congress declined to join Ford in ticking off the strategic assets of the three disputing nations before it imposed an arms embargo on Turkey in February. Congressional law authorizes the use of American supplied weapons by foreign countries for defense purposes only and Turkey clearly violated this law. In May the Senate reversed its decision under pressure from the administration. It is doubtful that a simple resumption of aid--if the House also approves this--will promote any gestures of good will towards the Greek Cypriots or the United States, since the threat on an embargo never induced any compromises. But the Turks might consent to soften their position on Cyprus if that was made firm precondition to the sale of arms.

THE TURKISH CYPRIOTS have instituted an autonomous administration in the northern territory that they have resettled. They are determined to maintain the division of Cyprus into two zoned that would be federated under a central government. At most, 5-to-10,000 of the 45,000 ethic Turks that once lived in the area south of the military line of demarcation remain there now. Ankara persuaded many to leave their homes by warning that education and other public services would be withheld in the south.

Clerides is resigned to a bizonal arrangement, but will participate in a session of talks slated for July only if Rauf Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot leader, remains open to his ideas for a central government. The Greek community aims to avert the possibility of an eventual union between their counterparts' federal state and the Turkish mainland by granting substantial power to the central government.

The most urgent and controversial questions pivot on the Greek Cypriot refugees who fled the Atilla operation last summer. There are at least 180,000 of them--almost a third of the total Cypriot population--and although they have all been squeezed into tents, the strain of caring for so many dispossessed is severe.

While the United State disregarded the issues within Cyprus because of their larger repercussions in the Atlantic alliance, it funneled a remarkable amount of humanitarian aid into the country. This course of action suggested to the Greek and Cypriot governments that the United States was following a balanced policy. It was a way of contriving to contain the refugees until Ankara had imposed its notion of social equity on the island, at which point Secretary of State Henry Kissinger '50 lent tacit approval to the invasion by announcing that "the Turkish Government considers the demarcation line negotiable...." He skirted the essential problem of an illegal military venture and accepted partition.

If Clerides is able to write provisions for a strong central government into the new Cypriot constitution, the Turks may have Archbishop Makarios to contend with. Makarios was overthrown as president of Cyprus in a coup d'etat shortly before the Turkish invasion last summer.

Makarios adamantly supports Cypriot identity devoid of ties with Greece or Turkey. Whenever disputes have arisen between the two communities on Cyprus in the past, he has spurned foreign mediation and turned to the U.N., even though its methods have not always been decisive.

On the Turkish side, former Premier Bulent Ecevit parallels the Archbishop's situation. He is backed primarily by workers and intellectuals and pinions the ability of Premier Demirel's fragile coalition to make any firm moves toward compromise. He because a sort of national hero by ordering the display of military clout on Cyprus, and his portrait, tainted by a stiff smile, figures in lurid red, blue and olive posters illustrating the "peace-keeping operations" on the island.

AMERICAN INDIFFERENCE to Turkey's order for "peacekeeping" in Cyprus prompted Greek President Caramanlis to end the home-port arrangement for the Sixth Fleet at Eleusis and to close an American air base. By tempering Greek associations with NATO he strengthened his domestic standing, as the U.S. is unpopular in Greece. Kissinger is despised for his support of repressive regimes in Greece. Chile, Vietnam, Cyprus...and Vice President Rockefeller is ridiculed, at least since his foolish slur in response to a serious question. When asked how he would feel if he were Greek and Turkey used U.S. supplied weapons against him, he answered:

If I were a Greek and I believed in democracy I would be so very happy that my country, as a result of the blunders of the military dictatorship in Cyprus, that the government was overthrown that would be down on my knees praying to whoever they pray to.

At the NATO summit meeting in Belgium. President Ford expressed hope that Greece would re-enter the alliance. Considering the utilitarian American view of the Mediterranean, it is not hard to understand Caramanlis's conception of a United Europe--without NATO and the U.S.--as an alternative to the current balance of power. The old framework is too rigid to contain the present multiplicity of societies. There is no longer a Communism to pit the Western system against--perhaps, as the late Greek Prime Minister. George Papandreou has written, even the term democracy is simply a euphemism and a way of confusing the mind.