OPERATIONS IN CYPRUS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28794, 15 January 1959, Page 9

OPERATIONS IN CYPRUS

Suspension Call By Labour

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, January 14

The Commonwealth sub-com-mittee of the Labour Party last night issued a statement calling on the Government to suspend military operations in Cyprus during political discussions between Greece and Turkey, newspapers reported today. The statement also urged the Government to proclaim its willingness to abandon the Macmillan plan for the island and to avoid giving any suspicion that it favoured partition. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr James Griffiths, said the sub-committee believed the present situation in Cyprus offered ‘‘a wonderful opportunity for negotiation.” The Governor of Cyprus (Sir Hugh Foot) released a further 35 political prisioners today and said in a broadcast: ‘‘lf the present truce could become a permanent peace we could lift the ban on the return of deportees—Archbishop Makarios and the others.”

The terrorist organisation, Eoka, declared a truce on Christmas Eve, and active terrorism in the island has been in abeyance since then.

The Governor, pleading for violence to be abandoned for good, said that if peace became permanent he could gradually release all detainees —about 1500 are still held —and could close the camps and end the emergency. ‘‘The chances of agreement in 1959 are, I believe, greater than they have ever been before,” he said.

But on demands for British military operations to be called off he said, ‘‘we shall never give freedom to organise terror. There will be no bargain with violence.”

The 35 men freed from various camps today drove along Ledra street, on Nicosia’s ‘‘murder mile,” sounding car hooters, and cheered by shop-keepers and bystanders. They were hugged and kissed at Phaneromeni Church, where a thanksgiving service was held.