Istanbul Riots - Reactions

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On 7 September, the Menderes government closed the "Cyprus is Turkish" Association (CTA) and arrested its executives. A CTA detainee, and spy, named Kamil Önal had one of his CTA associates burn an intelligence report originating from the National Security Service (NSS) that was at the CTA office. In addition, a member from the Kızıltoprak branch, Serafim Sağlamel, was found to be carrying an address list of non-Muslim citizens. 34 trade unions were dissolved. The Minister of Internal Affairs resigned on September 10. On September 12, the government blamed Turkish Communists for the pogrom, arresting 45 "card-carrying communists" (including Aziz Nesin, Kemal Tahir, and İlhan Berktay). This type of "false flag" anti-Communist propaganda was a staple of the Counter-Guerrilla. When opposition leader İsmet İnönü delivered a speech criticizing the government for rounding up innocent people instead of the actual perpetrators, the communists were released in December 1955. An angry Menderes said that İnönü would not be forgiven for his speech, pardoning the communists.

Oktay Engin and consulate employee Hasan Uçar were arrested on 18 September. Engin was first charged with executing the attack, but he presented an alibi so the charge was dropped to incitement. He was detained for nine months. Three months later, the NSS exfiltrated him before the Greek courts sentenced him to 3.5 years. In addition, Turkey refused Greece's extradition request.

87 CTA leaders were released in December 1955, while 17 were taken to court on 12 February 1956. The indictment initially blamed the CTA only for inciting some students to burn Greek newspapers in Taksim Square. In response to police chief Kemal Aygün's question about the Cominform's role in the affair, Şevki Mutlugil of the NSS cooked up a report, which concluded that the Comintern and Cominform had conspired to sabotage NATO. As proof, the prosecution submitted some brochures from the Communist Party of Turkey and a pair of letters from Nâzım Hikmet which called on the workers of Cyprus to stand against imperialism. To bolster the claims, the indictment claimed that NSS agent Kamil Önal had contacted the Comintern while on duty in Lebanon and defected, effectively exonerating the NSS.

The remaining prisoners were released on 12 January 1957 for lack of evidence, by order of the Istanbul First Penal Court (Turkish: İstanbul 1. Ceza Mahkemesi).

The chargé d’affaires at the British Embassy in Ankara, Michael Stewart, directly implicated Menderes’ Demokrat Parti in the execution of the attack. “There is fairly reliable evidence that local Demokrat Parti representatives were among the leaders of the rioting in various parts of Istanbul, notably in the Marmara islands, and it has been argued that only the Demokrat Parti had the political organisation in the country capable of demonstrations on the scale that occurred,” he reported, refusing to assign blame to the party as a whole or Menderes personally, however. The Foreign Office pointedly underscored the fact that British citizens were also victims of the attack.

Although British ambassador to Ankara, Bowker, advised British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan that the United Kingdom should “court a sharp rebuff by admonishing Turkey”, only a note of distinctly mild disapproval was dispatched to Menderes. The context of the Cold War led Britain and the U.S. to absolve the Menderes government of the direct political blame that it was due. The efforts of Greece to internationalize the human rights violations through international organizations such as the UN and NATO found little sympathy. British NATO representative Cheetham deemed it “undesirable” to probe the pogrom. U.S. representative Edwin M. Martin thought the effect on the alliance was exaggerated, and the French, Belgians and Norwegians urged the Greeks to "let bygones be bygones". Indeed, the North Atlantic Council issued a statement that the Turkish government had done everything that could be expected.

By popular vote, the Cyprus issue was dropped from the U.N. agenda on 23 September 1955. Britain had successfully avoided a potential diplomatic embarrassment.