A fragile peace
One of the advantages, from the point of view of international peace; of the colonels' regime in Greece has been that the dictators were strong enough to resist the temptation to go to war with Turkey, either over the Cyprus question or the islands of disputed possession in the Aegean. Now, with the overthrow of President Makarios, it appears that Colonel Ionides intends to take a far tougher line over such matters than did President Papadopolous. If that is the case, the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean will be bleak indeed. Archbishop Makarios, after his early failures to put down his Turkish population, maintained a tight and tense balance between the two communities on the island. It is now imperative that the United States exercises the maximum possible pressure, both at Athens and at Nicosia — not to mention Istanbul, where the Turkish Army will be on the alert — to preserve the fragile peace of today.
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