Turkish Federated State Declared

By the start of 1975 Cyprus was split along the ceasefire line left by the fighting of the previous summer. Turkish Cypriots in the north were governed by the Autonomous Turkish Cypriot Administration, chaired by Rauf Denktaş. The open question was what political form that area should take while negotiations went on.

On 13 February 1975 Denktaş answered it. At a meeting of the administration’s assembly he proclaimed the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus. The wording was deliberate. The Turkish Cypriot leadership said it was not declaring independence or breaking away. The new state was presented as the Turkish Cypriot half of a future federal republic, and its leaders hoped the Greek Cypriots would form a matching federated state of their own. Both sides at the time spoke of a federal settlement, although they meant quite different things by it.

A constitution was drafted and put to the voters on 8 June 1975. Official results recorded more than 99 per cent in favour, on a turnout of about 70 per cent. Denktaş led the new state as its president, and in elections the following year his National Unity Party won a majority in the assembly.

The Republic of Cyprus, still headed by Archbishop Makarios, rejected the move, as did the Greek government in Athens. On 12 March 1975 the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 367. It regretted the unilateral decision of 13 February, saw it as harmful to negotiations between the communities, and asked the UN Secretary General to begin a new good offices mission bringing both sides to the table. No state recognised the federated state.

Resolution 367 led directly to the Vienna talks between Glafcos Clerides and Denktaş, which opened in April 1975 and produced the population agreement of that August. The federated state lasted for eight and a half years. In November 1983, with negotiations stalled, its assembly went a step further and declared the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.