UN General Assembly
1964

51. I am sure that many of you remember the discussions which took place in our Assembly on this question between 1954 and 1958. Cyprus was then a British colony, and the Greek Government demanded that the island should be ceded to Greece, invoking the principle of self-determination without taking into account either the historical and geographical facts which constitute close links between Turkey and the island, or the existence in Cyprus of a Turkish community of 120,000 people who refused to be placed under Greek sovereignty. Turkey, on the other hand, considered that a fair application of the right of self- determination required that the wishes of the Turkish Cypriots should be taken isto account, that the long historical association between Turkey and Cyprus and the geographical proximity of the island to the southern shores of Turkey could not be ignored, that the problem could be solved only in the context of relations between Greece and Turkey, and that consequently the best solution would be to divide the island between Turkey and Greece.