89. Telegram From the Mission in Geneva to the Department of State1

181. From: Acheson. One-hour discussion late this afternoon with Greek rep Nikolareisis may be summarized as follows:

1.
He said he had been called back to Athens last Saturday and had gone expecting very negative reaction to suggestions I had put to him. He had long conversations with Prime Minister and Foreign Minister alone. Was pleased to find that they were determined to be forthcoming and conciliatory as possible. Papandreou had insisted on his great desire for peace and expressed appreciation of efforts I was making to avoid Greek-Turkish conflict. He had given him (Nikolareisis) reply to ideas I had thrown out, which PM thought really should be considered as tentative proposal rather than separate suggestions.
2.
My proposal consisted of three parts: (a) minority rights for Turkish population of Cyprus; (b) international supervision of application of these rights; and (c) provision for Turkish national security. To these three points PM’s reactions were:
(1)
Although it would be difficult for Greece, with its excellent record of treatment of all its citizens, to give special privileges to minority on Cyprus, he nevertheless would be willing to grant substantially what I had suggested, even including two Turk-Cypriot administered Eparchis under Turk-Cypriot Eparchs, provided these latter were appointed from Athens and not by Ankara. He would also accept establishment special Turk-Cypriot courts.
(2)
It would likewise be very hard to accept international supervision of this arrangement, but Papandreou was nevertheless willing to agree to type of UN presence I had outlined.
(3)
Even though cession of Greek territory to foreign country would be extremely difficult to sell to Greek people, PM was prepared let Turkey have island of Kastellorizon as military base to protect its approaches. Question of sovereign Turkish base area on Cyprus, however, was another matter. Most he could contemplate in way of Turkish military presence on Cyprus would be a sharing of British base areas with Turkish forces, provided bases themselves remained entirely under British sovereignty.
3.
I said that PM had indeed made genuine effort to bridge gap between Greece and Turkey and I was grateful for it. I thought this gave us real basis for continued discussion. In particular, I would now try to develop and give to parties in more concrete form ideas regarding character of minority regime and minority rights which I thought might be applied and which I had not tried to make precise in previous talks.
4.

I said, however, that I should be less than frank if I did not express fears that Greek response on sovereign base question would fail to meet minimum Turkish demands.

Turks, in their conversations with me, had been arguing for a good deal more than I had proposed, whereas Greeks were not even accepting idea of Turkish sovereign area, regardless of how small. With regard to Papandreou suggestion that Turks might share British bases, I said I could not say definitely what Turkish reaction would be, since I had never put this idea to them. I doubted they would accept it, however. In any case, it was not useful for us to debate matter today since we did not even know whether British would be amenable. Nikolareisis commented that Papandreou and Costopoulos were now in London and he thought they would put the suggestion to British.2 We agreed that we would await some report on London meetings before trying to go further along this particular line.

5.
There followed considerable discussion of the Turkish sovereign base question. Nikolareisis was quite firm in expressing opinion that GOG could not accept it and that in any case Greek-Cypriots would never do so. He asserted it would be regarded both in Cyprus and in Greece as form of partition. Furthermore, it would “give Turks more than they had before” and would establish them in position to interfere in affairs of Cyprus in future. This would be perennial cause of trouble. I took issue with some of his argumentation, especially thesis that it would give Turkey more than she had before, but I shall not bother Department [Page 193] with details. I admitted that question of sovereign base area might become breaking point which would make my efforts here useless, since I believed Turks felt just as strongly on their side as Nikolareisis said Greeks did on theirs. Nevertheless, I thought we could usefully continue our efforts and explore all aspects at least for a while longer.

I said I thought I should be as candid with Turks as I had been with Greeks and would therefore tell Erim and Sunalp substantially what Nikolareisis had conveyed to me. He agreed. Am seeing Turks again late tomorrow morning.3

Comment: At least we are still moving down the track, even though there is a very high hurdle between us and the finish line.

Tubby
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 23–8 CYP. Secret; Priority; Exdis-TAG. Repeated to London, Athens, Ankara, and USUN.
  2. Papandreou visited London July 20–21. The Embassy reported on his talks at the Foreign Office in telegram 362 from London, July 22. (Ibid.)
  3. Acheson reported on discussions with the Turks and their initial response to the Greek suggestions in telegram 188 from Geneva, July 22. Noting that the Turks’ basic demand was a sovereign base area, he commented: “It seems apparent that the hurdle of the Turkish sovereign base area is indeed very high.” (Ibid.)