ABSTRACT
The island of Cyprus is located in the eastern Mediterranean, less than one hour’s flying time from Athens and forty miles from the coast of Turkey; Syria is sixty miles from the ‘pan-handle’, Cape Andreas, and Egypt some two hundred miles from Cape Gata in the south. The island has a population of 620,000 approximately one-twentieth that of Greater London and three times that of Iceland. There are two distinct ethnic groups: the majority Greek Cypriots, with 80 per cent of the population, and the Turkish Cypriots, the largest minority group, with 18 per cent. On 16 August 1960 Cyprus became an independent republic, headed by Archbishop Makarios. On 21 September 1960 the republic was admitted to the United Nations and in the following year became a member of the Commonwealth.
