Greek spy agency releases 50-year-old Cyprus invasion documents
Source: NEOS KOSMOS
Greece’s state intelligence agency on Wednesday said it had declassified archival documents for the first time in its history, covering the period of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus in 1974 in response to a coup against the government led by a military dictatorship in Athens.
Cyprus has since been divided between the Greek-speaking UN-recognised republic in the south and the Turkish Cypriot north, which unilaterally declared independence in 1983.
The set of documents covers the period of the invasion from July to August 1974, said Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, a professor of postwar history at the National University of Athens, in a statement, adding that they were of “critical importance”.
The archives reveal that the intelligence agency was “not informed” of the attempted coup organised by the Greek dictatorship against Archbishop Makarios, the president of Cyprus, Hatzivassiliou said.
“The (dictatorship)… informed only those absolutely necessary,” he said.
After the coup, the agency was “quite accurate” in describing Turkish preparations for war, but the warnings were ignored in Athens, he said.
The failure to defend Cyprus led to the fall of the Greek dictatorship in July 1974. A second Turkish invasion followed weeks later in August.
Greece’s intelligence agency EYP Director-General Themistoklis Demiris on Wednesday said that the agency would go on to declassify additional documents referring to “dark” periods of Greek history, without elaborating.
The agency, which is supervised by the prime minister’s office, in 2022 was embroiled in a major wiretapping scandal when it emerged that several ministers and other officials were revealed to have been under state surveillance.
In addition, dozens of people including EYP’s own in-house prosecutor and the chief of police were also found to have been targeted with illegal malware known as Predator.
Though the purpose of the state wiretaps was classified and was never disclosed, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis later told parliament the monitoring by EYP was legal.
The then EYP chief and Mitsotakis’ nephew, who was a top aide in his office, both resigned when it emerged that senior politician Nikos Androulakis, who later became the leader of the Greek socialist party, was among those under legal surveillance.
Despite numerous queries, Androulakis has received no official answer as to why he was under state surveillance.
Critics have said valuable time was lost in launching the investigation, compromising key evidence.
Source: AFP
The original article: belongs to NEOS KOSMOS .
