344. Message From Foreign Secretary Lloyd to Secretary of State Herter0
Dear Chris: You will have heard of the decision to postpone the date of independence for Cyprus until March 19. We gave your Embassy a pretty full account of the meetings on Saturday and Sunday.1 I want to tell you something of the background of yesterday’s announcement.
My meetings with the Foreign Ministers of Greece and Turkey and with Archbishop Makarios and Dr. Kutchuk had reached no decisions up to yesterday, and virtually the whole time had been taken up in stating our military requirements, particularly as regards the size of the two sovereign areas. Makarios of course had no conception of what a base means in this modern age. We had complete support from Averoff and Zorlu. Makarios, however, remained obstinately on his old position that we were entitled to no more than the actual area of our present military installations. By yesterday it seemed to me that, short of applying intolerable pressure, we would not have the necessary measure of agreement to justify our presenting the Independence Bill for its second [Page 812] reading in Parliament in time for independence on February 19. Weighing up the risks of presenting Makarios with a 48 hour ultimatum against those of a postponement, we decided that provided Makarios gave real evidence of a will to allow serious progress on the various aspects of the agreement during the remainder of this week, the right course was to agree to postponement. Averoff and Zorlu were in complete agreement. Of course, if we have not the makings of a satisfactory settlement of differences by the end of this week a very serious situation will arise, and I have reserved the right to reconvene the full meeting and consider radical measures in Cyprus itself. I think this has sunk in.
As to the various matters at issue, my impression and that of Averoff, who should be able to judge, is that in his heart Makarios realises that he cannot push us further on the base areas. his main concern is therefore to secure concessions from us in the matter of their administration. He has to justify to his people the claim that we cannot be allowed to maintain little colonies which might be a threat to the economy of the republic. We can do a lot to help him in this, provided that he does not expect us to impair our sovereignty. I am working on this with him and Kutchuk this morning. I shall be discussing our military requirements in the territory of the republic with them this afternoon. There is also the question of economics and finance. The latter is likely to prove quite important.
Some papers give the impression of a breakdown, but this is quite unjustified. I will let you know how things look at the end of this week. As you know, Makarios is not an easy customer, but I hope that the combination of firmness on our military requirements, extension of the time limit and face-saving in the matter of administration within our base areas may bring him round.2
All good wishes,
Yours ever,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Project Clean Up, Cyprus. Secret and Personal. Enclosure to a letter from Caccia to Herter, January 19.↩
- On January 16–17, representatives of the United Kingdom, Greece, and Turkey met Archbishop Makarios and Dr. Kuchuk in London in an effort to resolve outstanding differences and permit the Cypriot Republic to come into existence on February 19. The British and Cypriots were unable to resolve their differences over the issue of the territory and rights to be granted for British bases and the date of Cypriot independence was put back to March 19. Telegram 3598 from London, January 20, reported the Foreign Office’s account of the January 16 and 17 meetings. (Department of State, Central Files, 747C.00/1–2060)↩
- In a January 20 reply, Herter praised Lloyd for his efforts to carry the talks over Cyprus to a successful conclusion. (Ibid., 747C.00/1–2160)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩