Eleven Popular Political Misconceptions
(Click on maps/pictures/diagrams below to enlarge them.)
1 Cyprus was an independent country till Turkey invaded the North in 1974.
In actual fact it was Greece who first invaded the whole island in July 1974. The Greek military junta in Athens organized a coup against President Makarios with the objective of annexing the island to Greece. However Makarios survived, went to the UN in New York and pleaded for help because ‘Greece has invaded Cyprus’. His pleas were ignored, especially by Britain which was a guarantor of Cypriot independence with thousands of troops stationed permanently on the island. Turkey also appealed to Britain to intervene, and only took unilateral action to protect the Turkish-Cypriot population from extermination/ethnic cleansing when Britain refused to help. The whole thing stinks of a NATO plot between USA, UK, Greece and Turkey against what they considered a pro-Soviet Makarios.
The present-day TRNC is colored yellow, the British occupied areas (sovereign bases) are shaded gray and white, the remainder comes under the Greek-Cypriot administration.
2 The Berlin Wall sealed off East Berlin.
