1974 Cyprus Coup - Turkish Invasion Looms in Tense Reports on Mounting Crisis (1974)

On 17 July 1974, two days after being overthrown in a military coup d'etat led by the Cypriot National Guard, deposed President of Cyprus Archbishop Makarios III held a press conference in London. Having fled to the UK with British assistance, Makarios sought to denounce the Greek-sponsored coup as a foreign invasion, while asserting his status as the legitimate ruler of Cyprus. While Makarios told reporters that he did not yet wish for military assistance from Britain or Turkey, Turkish forces were already mobilising to intervene. Indeed, ITN filmed the Turkish prime minister, Bülent Ecevit, arriving at Downing Street for an urgent audience with Harold Wilson the same day Makarios paid his own visit to Number 10.

ITN also interviewed Kyriakos Palos, the UK chairman of the Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B (EOKA-B), a Greek Cypriot paramilitary organisation dedicated to achieving enosis (union) between Cyprus and Greece. Palos justified the coup on the basis that Makarios was interested not in ruling Cyprus but in promoting his "personal cult", aided by repressive state security organs. Palos also argued that time would see the Cypriot people come out in support of the coup. The following day in Paris, ITN's Jon Lander interviewed UK foreign secretary James Callaghan about the unfolding crisis. Callaghan described his efforts at diplomacy as war loomed over the eastern Mediterranean, emphasising the UK's recognition of the deposed Makarios III as the legitimate Cypriot president, and warning that he believed the crisis would deteriorate further before things improved.

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