Genral Information - Cyprus

Background
Cypriot culture is among the oldest in the Mediterranean. The island fell successively under Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman domination. For 800 years, beginning in 364 AD, Cyprus was ruled by Byzantium. In 1571, the island was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and was ceded to Great Britain in 1878. Annexed formally by the United Kingdom in 1914 it became a crown colony in 1925. British rule lasted until August 1960 when, after a four-year liberation struggle, the island became independent and was proclaimed a Republic.

In 1974, a coup was staged in Cyprus by the Greek-military junta to seize the government of the President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, answered by a military intervention from Turkey in which the Turkish troops soon controlled about 37% of the island. 40% of the total Greek Cypriot population, were forced to leave their homes in the occupied area.

Since 1974, Cyprus has been divided de facto into the government-controlled two-thirds of the island in the south and the Turkish Cypriot one-third in the north, with an by UN peacekeeping forces maintained buffer zone between them. Under the influence of the United Nations and the European Union efforts to reunite the island under a federal structure are ongoing.