IT'S NOT JUST MAKARIOS
SIR,—Mrs. Emma Eyden asserts (September 18) that my explanation that the Turkish Cypriots initiated hostilities is ludicrously unconvincing and in support of her assertion she says that Archbishop Makarios is on record as saying that even if the Turks re- jected the amendment he would, nevertheless, pro- ceed with it. What does she prove by that? Did Archbishop Makarios or any member of the Government state that if' the Turks rejected the amendments the Greeks would impose them by force? Certainly not. President Makarios did say that he would proceed with the amendments because he thought that a constitution is there to serve the peopU. and not to afford scandalous privileges to an I ff per cent minority,.
Mrs. Eyden goes on to make another ridiculous allegation: that Archbishop Makarios has practi- cally ignored the UN Mediator. I challenge her to produce evidence in support of this allegation.
But Mrs. Eyden also shed bitter tears about the failure of the Geneva talks, which she says Presi- dent Makarios torpedoed. What President Makarios did in this particular case was to deplore the in- sistence of what he called 'self-invited mediators' on prescribing a solution to the problem in the absence of the people directly concerned, i.e., the Cypriots. And he emphasised that the solution should be sought in the United Nations. Is there anything wrong with that?
Finally, Mrs. Eyden alleges that President Makarios is determined to deny the Turkish Cypriots their legal rights. For her information, what Makarios (and indeed the entire Greek-Cypriot majority) is resolutely opposed to is the perpetuation of the privileges, as distinct from rights, accorded to the Turkish Cypriot minority under the Zurich and London agreements of 1959—privileges which ignored democratic principles operating elsewhere ill the world and had the effect of depriving the majority of the sovereign right to detern4e its own governmental structure and policies.
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