Turkish Invasion
The Turkish invasion of Cyprus, launched on 20 July 1974, was a Turkish military invasion in response to a Greek military junta backed coup in Cyprus. It is known in Turkey as the "Cyprus Peace Operation" (Turkish: Kıbrıs Barış Harekâtı), "Cyprus Operation" (Kıbrıs Harekâtı) or by its Turkish Armed Forces code name Operation Atilla (Atilla Harekâtı).
The coup, ordered by the military Junta in Greece and staged by the Cypriot National Guard in conjunction with EOKA-B, deposed the Cypriot president Archbishop Makarios III and installed Nikos Sampson in his place.
More than one quarter of the population of Cyprus was expelled from the occupied northern part of the island where Greek Cypriots constituted 80% of the population. A little over a year later in 1975, there was also a flow of roughly 60,000 Turkish Cypriots from the south to the north after the conflict. The Turkish invasion ended in the partition of Cyprus along the UN-monitored Green Line which still divides Cyprus today. In 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) declared independence, although Turkey is the only country which recognises it.
Read more about Turkish Invasion: Background, Atrocities and Human Right Abuses, Declaration of The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Code Names, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words turkish and/or invasion:
“The French courage proceeds from vanity—the German from phlegm—the Turkish from fanaticism & opium—the Spanish from pride—the English from coolness—the Dutch from obstinacy—the Russian from insensibility—but the Italian from anger.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)