Conflict Guaranteed: Imperialism, Cyprus, and the 1960 treaty of guarantee- Ilia Xypolia

This talk will address the most consequential arrangement for the ongoing conflict in Cyprus, the Treaty of Guarantee as part of the 1959-1960 settlements that granted an inherently flawed independence to the Republic of Cyprus. The old-school imperial Treaty of Guarantee provided to the three guarantors - Britain, Greece and Turkey - powers to consult about territorial integrity and security of an independent Republic of Cyprus. Drawing upon archival materials, this talk explores the importance of the Treaty for the British, Turkish, and Greek strategies in Cyprus. It argues that on the one hand the imperial character of the Treaty was shaped by the divide and rule policies applied on the island since the advent of the British imperial rule and on the other hand that there is more continuity than rupture of Greek and Turkish strategies between the 1950s and 1970s.

Dr Ilia Xypolia is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and Charles E. Scheidt Faculty Fellow, Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, Binghamton University, State University of New York. Ilia's interdisciplinary research interests broadly concern how democracy, human rights, nationalism and imperialism engage with and contribute to the historical-sociological strand of International Relations.