346. Letter From the Ambassador to Cyprus (Popper) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Sisco)1
Dear Joe:
I appreciate your thoughtfulness in sending us State 169787 and 172042, detailing your conversations with Ed Tomkins and Ambassador Ronne.2 They are fine summaries of the existing state of play in your negotiations, and most helpful as background here.
We will be alert to the possibility of using Cyprus as the site of Rhodes-type negotiations,3 if you can iron out the points still at issue with the Russians and the Parties. As you know, Jarring still maintains his offices at the Cyprus Hilton. This island is the obvious place for Rhodes-type meetings, unless one wants to leave the area altogether in favor of places like Geneva or Vienna. I should think it would be better to keep the Parties closer to home.
Meanwhile you have a cheering section in Nicosia rooting for you as you work on this intractable subject. [Page 861] Locally, as we have reported,4 we are in a deteriorating phase. The Clerides–Denktash talks are at a stalemate. Both sides are saying publicly that they will make no further concessions. The Government is orchestrating a tough publicity line,5 which culminated this week in three speeches by Makarios to National Guard audiences calling for resolute preparedness in any eventuality if the talks fail, extolling the old Greek virtues, and rejecting the idea of outside intervention either by the Greek and Turkish Governments or a five-power conference.
All this is quite disturbing. It does not please the Greek Government, which has had its Ambassador here comment to the Archbishop and which must be uncomfortable at the Archbishopʼs hints that he is being supported by Athens. Moreover, during a day-long field trip to outlying UNFICYP posts yesterday, I learned from the Deputy Commander that the attitudes of the two military organizations have perceptively hardened. At many points, magazines are now inserted into automatic weapons, and where local commanders would talk to UNFICYP officers they now hang back. I cite this not because I think any military action is imminent, but to illustrate the essential fragility of the current situation and the ease with which tensions can be raised here.
Why the Archbishop is doing all this is anybodyʼs guess. My own feeling is that one prominent purpose must be to put more pressure on the Turkish community to make concessions. (The Archbishop has a strong case here; as we reported in our 1555, the Greek side has done virtually all the conceding so far.) The trouble is that the saber-rattling may have the opposite effect of making the stubborn Turks still more stubborn.
We believe the most helpful step in the near future might come from the Greek and Turkish Governments. We are encouraging another meeting of Pipinelis and Chaglayangil. The British are sending a new Ambassador to Ankara and will use the occasion to try to persuade Ankara to lean on the Turkish community here. Peter Ramsbotham will be travelling to Ankara at the beginning of December to lend a hand.
We think this is a useful approach. The Turkish community here is so dependent on Turkish Government support that they should be susceptible to strong pressures from that direction. Ankara has shied away from an activist role of late, but with the election behind us, maybe they can be induced to step up to the problem. We will keep you informed.
Warm regards.
Sincerely,
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 27 CYP. Secret; Exdis; Official–Informal. A copy was sent to Folsom.↩
- Telegrams 169787 and 172042 to Nicosia, October 7 and 10, both reported on the Jarring mediation effort. (Ibid., POL 27–14 ARAB–ISR)↩
- Reference to the negotiation of an armistice between Israel and the Arab states, January–March 1949, at Rhodes with Ralph Bunche serving as UN acting mediator.↩
- In an October 6 Official–Informal letter from Popper to Sisco. (Ibid., POL 27 CYP)↩
- Reported and analyzed in telegram 1555 from Nicosia, October 9. (Ibid.)↩