Makarios Plan To End Cyprus Deadlock

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28699, 24 September 1958, Page 13

Makarios Plan To End Cyprus Deadlock

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, September 23. The vice-chairman of the British Labour Party, Mrs Barbara Castle, flew into London from Athens last night and told reporters she was convinced Archbishop Makarios was completely sincere in an offer to end the deaddock in Cyprus. Mrs Castle, who is also an M.P., declined to give reporters details of the offer which the Archbishop had outlined to her in private talks. A report from Athens circulating in London last night quoted her -as saying the Greek Cypriot leader had told her he would be prepared to accept independence for Cyprus without links with either Greece or Turkey. Mrs Castle said she had met the Archbishop three times and he had made the suggestion for an independent Cyprus.

“I at once went to see the British Ambassador in Athens and gave him the news,” Mrs Castle is reported to have said.

“I asked him to convey it to the Colonial Secretary (Mr Alan Lennox Boyd) with my personal plea that he should hold up the sending of the Turkish representative to Cyprus at least until the nature of Archbishop Makarios’s offer had been fully explored by the British Government. “The moment I arrived in Cyprus I went straight to see the Governor (Sir’ Hugh Foot) with the same plea. “I received no response to this request,” she said. The Archbishop’s offer, she said, was made privately, first in the hope that some response would come from the Government, showing at any rate an interest in the offer, and recognising it was sufficiently important to warrant a fuller investigation by the Government.

But there had been no Veply. she said.

“I believe Archbishop Makarios is deeply worried about the deterioration of the atmosphere in Cyprus.”

Mrs Castle said she planned to approach the Colonial Secretary as soon as possible, and would bring the Archbishop’s offer to the notice df the Labour Party executive before the Scarborough conference “It would be criminal folly not to explore the possibilities of this solution by immediate talks with Archbishop Makarios.” she declared. Conduct of Troops Earlier in her press conference, Mrs Castle said she still thought that British troops in Cyprus were being permitted to be very tough in searching villages in areas where incidents had taken place. Her original remarks on this in Cyprus caused a press controversy in Britain and sparked a row within the Labour Party. Yesterday, Mr James Matthews, a Trade Union member of the Labour Party National Executive, issued a statement describing her comments as deplorable and unjustifiable Mrs Castle said: “I went to all three villages involved in the incidents and interviewed people there. “I saw their injuries and their medical certificates, and I challenge some of the facts stated in that Government communique.

“The communique said that 56 people received medical attention at Katima. But I, personally, interviewed many other people who had received treatment in other hospitals.” she said. Sir Hugh Foot had said in his statement that he was not surprised the troops were rough with those who resisted arrest. Mrs Castle said: “The men I was talking to had not been arrested. They could not have been talking to me if they had been arrested.

“These were not cases of men resisting arrest.” She said she was not blaming the individual soldiers but the Government which was leading soldiers to believe that all GreekCypriots were their enemies.