ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Turkish efforts, after 1957, to establish and sustain a communal administrative structure within the island. The Ankara-driven aim was to secure a communal power base for the Turkish Cypriot minority to set against the increasingly assertive political tendencies of the Greek Cypriot majority. It will highlight the significance of the central but elusive role of their pursuit of communal control over territory in this regard. The chapter argues that because of the tensions in Greek - Turkish relations created by the Cyprus issue and because of the weakness of Greece in the region, the struggle, which was essentially between the Greek Cypriots, on the one hand, and the Turkish Cypriots and Ankara, on the other was over Greek Cypriot majority rule per se rather than Enosis. The preferred Turkish antidote was a communally based federation, partition being a fallback position. The connection between this policy and perceptions of Turkey’s strategic and political priorities is explored. The chapter goes back to the roots of this struggle which began at the end of the 1950s, in expectation of a British withdrawal, and takes a long-term view of the international context. An analogy is drawn with Turkey’s interest in, and final absorption, of the sanjak of the Hatay in the 1930s when it was part of French-mandated Syria.
