Cyprus Battle Lasts For Four Hours

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31340, 10 April 1967, Page 13

Cyprus Battle Lasts For Four Hours

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NICOSIA, April 9. Greek and Turkish Cypriot forces yesterday engaged in the island’s sharpest battle since the general cease-fire of August, 1964, the Associated Press reported.

United Nati ons peace force headquarters said light artillery and heavy machineguns were used extensively during the fourhour clash on the outskirts of the Turkish Cypriot village of Mari, 40 miles south-west of Nicosia and just off the main NicosiaLimasol highway.

A United Nations spokesman said the peace force commander, General Ilmair Martola, arranged a ceasefire.

An elderly Turkish Cypriot woman—shot through the leg —and about 10 Turkish Cypriots injured by falling masonry, were the only casualties, the spokesman said. At least 29 rounds from two-pounder cannons and more than 1000 rounds of heavy machine-gun ammunition were fired, he said. Turkish Cypriots claimed Greek Cypriot National Guard forces, using armoured cars, mortars and bazookas, had launched “an all-out attack” on Mari.

A communique by General George Grivas, commander of the National Guard, charged

the Turks precipitated the incident by opening up with machine-guns on a squadron of armoured cars travelling along the Nicosia-Limassol highway. General Grivas’s communique declared the armoured cars returned the fire and destroyed all Turkish machinegun posts on the heights in the vicinity of Mari village overlooking the highway.

Mari is a small, completely Turkish village surrounded by Greek-controlled territory. Turks maintain permanent positions on heights overlooking the highway. About 80 per cent of Cyprus’s population is of Greek descent and the remainder of Turkish descent The two communities have been feuding, often bloodily, for years.