159. Memorandum of Conversation1
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION BETWEEN SECRETARY RUSK AND MR. KYPRIANOU, CYPRIOT FOREIGN MINISTER
After I had asked other colleagues to excuse us in order that I might have a private talk with Mr. Kyprianou,2 he told me that it was necessary for him to go to Moscow because he did not wish to give offense to the Soviet Union in light of the fact that they had pressed President Makarios himself very hard to come to Moscow and he intimated (somewhat slyly) [Page 317] that he needed to be present to be sure that the Cypriot delegation in Moscow did not get off the track. He said that his purpose in going was to inform the Soviet Union that the ultimate object of Cypriot policy was union with Greece. He then asked me whether I did not think that if the Soviet Union and the United States both agreed to the union of Cyprus and Greece, this would ensure that Turkey would make no military moves.
I told him that whether he went to Moscow was his own affair but that I would urge upon him most solemnly that it would be a great mistake for Cyprus to abandon its position of non-alignment and find itself in a military or security arrangement with the Soviet Union. I said, very directly, that should such arrangements be in effect and there were trouble between the Warsaw Pact and NATO countries or between the United States and the Soviet Union, the result would simply be that Cyprus would be crushed. He tried to leave the impression that he expected nothing more than the unilateral declaration made by the Soviet Union in the Security Council yesterday to the effect that if Cyprus was attacked, the Soviet Union would defend Cyprus. I then told him that he could be sure that the Soviet Union would be playing a double or triple game in this situation since their object would be to stimulate difficulties for other people and tension between NATO allies. I pointed out the possibility that the Soviet Union might in fact stimulate Turkey to oppose enosis.
Mr. Kyprianou told me that upon his return to Nicosia from Moscow he would communicate very privately through Ambassador Belcher about his impressions of the Moscow visit.
- Source: Department of State, Ball Papers: Lot 74 D 272, Memcons Other Than Visits. Secret; Limit Distribution. Drafted by Rusk.↩
- Kyprianou visited Washington September 18 for talks on the Cyprus question. A memorandum of the other portions of his conversation with Rusk is ibid., Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 65 D 330. A memorandum of his conversation with Assistant Secretary Talbot is ibid., Central Files, POL 23–8 CYP.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩