Witness History15 Juli 2024

Cyprus 1974: The Greek coup

On 15 July 1974, the Greek military dictatorship in Athens sponsored a coup on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, aiming to overthrow its selected president and unite the island with Greece.

Days later, Turkey invaded the island, taking a third of it and displacing many thousands of its inhabitants.

The writer Bekir Azgun grew up in the village of Potamia, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots had once lived together in harmony. He speaks to Maria Margaronis about the day of the coup and reflects on the gradual separation of the island's two communities, beginning with the Greek Cypriot anticolonial struggle against Britain in the 1950s and culminating in the Turkish invasion and partition.

No outside power acted to stop this conflict between two NATO members. Cyprus, strategically positioned near the Middle East, remains divided to this day.

Archive by kind permission of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

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Music: Michalis Terlikkas.

(Photo: The new de facto President of Cyprus, Nikos Sampson, holds a press conference after the military coup d'état which deposed Archbishop Makarios. Credit: Harry Dempster/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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