CYPRUS SIR,—In his sincere but somewhat emotional apologia for the
Greek point of view on Cyprus, Mr. Leigh Fermor dismisses the Turkish point of view as a sudden and, he implies, unforeseen irruption, causing 'astonishment' both to the Greeks and to ourselves.
It can hardly have caused astonishment to anyone at all familiar with modern Turkey. What is for the Greeks primarily a historical is for the Turks primarily a geographical— hence a strategic—issue. Geographically they see Cyprus as a part of Anatolia. It lies 500 miles to the east of Athens (as far as Sicily, which once, indeed, was Greek, to the west of it), 250 miles to the east of the nearest Greek island of any consequence—and forty miles from the Turkish coast. It bears the same relation to Turkey's eastern lifeline, through the ports of Mersin and Iskenderun, as do the islands of lmbros and Tenedos to her western lifeline, through the Dardanelles. Imbros and Tenedos, the one wholly and the other pre- dominantly Greek in population, are under Turkish rule, and the Greeks are pressing no claim to them. Yet they press this claim to Cyprus, which the Turks regard as equally vital to their security.
It is true, as Mr. Leigh Fermor suggests, that the Turkish objection might equally apply to other Greek islands—though, strategically, in a lesser degree. It is also true, as no travel- ler in the €gean regions of Turkey can fail to observe, that a continuous state of tension does persist along the virtual 'Iron Curtain' between these islands and the mainland. Until the psychological causes of this tension can be removed, the pressing of the Greek claim to Cyprus is bound to provoke an explosive re- actiian in Turkey; and it is inconceivable that a responsible Greek Government should not have foreseen this—as our own Government evidently did.
'Fierce ancestral enmities' do not lay them- selves in a single generation. Greece and Turkey are allies, in fact, through NATO. But they have yet to become allies in spirit. This calls for a long, deliberate, patient and, above all, unemotional effort on both sides and at every level. Until this is achieved, the pressing of the Greek claim to Cyprus, with which many lovers of the island sympathise, can only undermine the unity of our three countries in this vital, strategic area of the Eastern Medi- terranean.—Yours faithfully, 4 Warwick Avenue, London, W2 K INROSS
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