Makarios and Denktaş High Level Agreement

By the end of 1976 the talks between negotiators that had begun in Vienna in 1975 had stalled, and the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus had been in place for almost two years. The UN tried a different approach: bring the two leaders themselves into the same room.

On 27 January 1977 Archbishop Makarios and Rauf Denktaş met in the presence of the UN Special Representative, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. It was their first meeting in years. A second meeting followed on 12 February 1977 at the UNFICYP headquarters in Nicosia, under the personal auspices of UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. There the two men agreed four short guidelines for future negotiations.

The first said they were seeking an independent, non aligned, bicommunal federal republic. The second said the territory under each community’s administration should be discussed in the light of economic viability or productivity and land ownership. The third left freedom of movement, freedom of settlement and the right to property open for discussion, taking into account the bicommunal federal system and practical difficulties that might arise for the Turkish Cypriot community. The fourth said the powers and functions of the central federal government should safeguard the unity of the country, having regard to its bicommunal character.

The text was brief and left almost everything to be negotiated. The word bizonal does not appear, although it is widely read as implied. According to the Library of Congress country study of Cyprus, Makarios hoped to keep around 75 to 80 per cent of the island for the Greek Cypriot zone, while Denktaş was thought willing to consider something nearer 68 per cent.

Talks resumed in Vienna from 31 March to 7 April 1977, with Waldheim present for the first meetings. Both sides tabled proposals, but the round ended without agreement. Makarios died that August. His successor Spyros Kyprianou and Denktaş reaffirmed the 1977 guidelines in their ten point agreement of May 1979, and together the two texts are known as the High Level Agreements.