SNUBBED IN CYPRUS
THE Prime Minister's statement on Cyprus has done nothing to solve the problem. Lord Radcliffe has arrived in the island to study the situation before drawing up a constitution', but the Ethnarchy and other Greek Cypriot organisations have refused to talk to him (as might have been expected), and his constitution is not going to be applied until terrorism has been overcome (which is much like refusing to open an umbrella until it has stopped raining). In fact, it Is most probable that his mission will be abortive. But then it is the result of a policy of abortions.
Not content with pursuing wrong policies, the Government has jammed the escape hatches by which it might possibly have wriggled out of a false situation. The exile of Archbishop Makarios was one example of this. General Templer's mission to Ankara was another. Within the space of three months the Government has produced three different versions of British Policy in Cyprus : first, that we might grant self-determination at some future date; second, that we could not grant self- determination at all because our interests in the Middle East demanded 'unfettered use' of the base there; third, that we should like to grant self-determination, but that the Turks would not agree to it. No matter which of these summaries of the situation Sir Anthony Eden and Mr. Selwyn Lloyd actually believe (and a curious anthology of their utterances on the matter could be produced), is it not perfectly obvious that Turkey suspected that to refuse the proposals of the Templer mission would cause no great outburst of rage in London? Of course, the Turkish answer was `No'—but then the question had been asked with the num that expects a negative reply. So one more door to a solution was closed. What the British Government has done is to make the transfer of Cyprus to Greece almost impossible without a decisive rupture between Greece and Turkey. This may have been clever in a sly way, but was it wise'? Certainly it was not very honest.
The Cyprus problem is now so complex that it • seems unlikely that any British government will be able on its own to solve it. The latest suggestion of partition ignores geographical realities, though it is true that other problems of this kind have been solved in a similar way. A bilateral agreement with Greece could have been reached and presented to Ankara as a fait accompli, but there is no chance of that after the Templer mission. The only way out would seem to be through arbitration of some kind, and, though Sir Anthony Eden rejected Mr. Gaitskell's proposal that the whole issue should be laid before NATO, it is clear that sooner or later America, which has been watching the southern end of the alliance dissolve before its eyes, will have to be brought into any dis- cussion of the question. There should be Anglo-American consultation to devise guarantees which the Turkish Govern- ment might accept, if presented to them firmly enough. There should also be British determination to grant real self- determination to the people of Cyprus within a limited time, and as a preliminary to this Archbishop Makarios should be brought back to the island. Some such arbitration seems, indeed, to be foreshadowed in the changes just announced in American diplomatic representation in the Mediterranean, but the sooner it gets under way the better. Recent weeks have enflamed the Cyprus question to such an extent that it is now a matter of international urgency that it should be settled before the passions aroused develop into permanent hatred.
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