348. Letter From the Ambassador to Cyprus (Popper) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Sisco)1
Dear Joe:
I returned late last night from a most interesting six-day visit to Ankara, Istanbul and Athens, and am hastening to get this short note off to you before the pouch closes this morning.
The trip was enormously helpful for general orientation purposes, as much with our Embassy people in Ankara and Athens as with top Foreign Office officials in the two capitals. We have a perennial difference in point of view with Bill Handley and company, which we talked out fully, so that we at least understand why we hold our respective viewpoints.2 I was impressed with the scope, complexity and urgency of the bilateral Turkish-American problems with which Embassy Ankara deals, and I appreciate why they would not wish to make a difficult series of negotiations any more difficult by dragging in discussions on Cyprus. I hope Embassy Ankara understands our feeling that in the overall US interest, we would be remiss if we were to let the Cyprus problem drift or to refrain from full contact with the Turks about it. We are perfectly happy to do this here in Nicosia if that is most helpful.
In Instanbul, I explored the relationship between the status of Greek and Turkish ethnic minorities resident in Turkey and Greece, and the Cyprus problem—a facet of the situation which is not critically important but nevertheless real. In Athens, we found a rather more confident mood than we had among the stubbornly determined Turks. We tried to impress on both sides the need for further accommodation if the Clerides–Denktash talks were not to wither away.
[Page 864]We have reported more fully on all the foregoing by telegram and memcon.3 It leaves the Embassy and me personally in a much better position to carry on. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to make the trip, and am happy that I was able to maintain the low profile that we all desired.
While I was away, a news agency carried a report that you might be making a trip to some Arab capitals. Evidently this was untrue, but the Foreign Office here thinks you might visit Cyprus in February. Naturally, all of us devoutly hope that you will find it possible to stop in Cyprus when you make the trip. I would of course love to see you personally, but equally important we relish every opportunity to remedy a certain feeling of remoteness and isolation which sometimes settles over us. So I am extending to you right now a most cordial invitation to put aside a little time for us when you make your visit.
My only regret about my recent trip was that I could not take Flo along. She has been in bed for several weeks with severe sciatica. She is coming along, but slowly. The Sherman Maisels will be here over Thanksgiving; I know that will help.
Warmest regards to Jean and to you.4
Sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Cyprus Desk Files: Lot 74 D 476, Pol US in Cyprus. Confidential; Official–Informal. Copies were sent to Folsom and Crawford. A notation on the letter reads: “Mr. Cash FYI.”↩
- According to a November 21 letter from Popper to Handley, the issue in dispute was the passage of information provided to the United States by one government to representatives of another: “We feel obliged to do this sort of thing fairly often because Nicosia is so much the center of discussion of the Cyprus problem” but the respective states involved frequently did not communicate directly. (Ibid.)↩
- See Document 347. Popper also reported on talks with Pipinelis in telegram 5139 from Athens, November 19. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 27 CYP) Boyatt, who accompanied Popper, summarized the talks in a November 24 memorandum to the Ambassador. (Department of State, Cyprus Desk Files: Lot 74 D 476, Pol US in Cyprus)↩
- In a December 1 reply, Sisco suggested that visits by Tasca and Handley to Nicosia might improve coordination and understanding among embassies and indicated that he would try to work a visit to Cyprus into future travel to the region. (Ibid.)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩