Resolution 186 and the Phrase 'Government of Cyprus': The Document at the Centre of the Island Ledger

Why It Matters

UN Security Council Resolution 186 of 4 March 1964 is the founding text of the UN presence in Cyprus, and it is the document in which the Council first spoke of “the Government of Cyprus” after the collapse of the 1960 power-sharing order. The UN, the Republic of Cyprus and the European Union read that phrase as confirming the continuity of the Republic. Ankara and the Turkish Cypriots read it as the moment a status asymmetry was written into the international record, one that still frames negotiations today. Anyone trying to understand why the Cyprus question has resisted settlement for sixty years should read this short text alongside the treaties that preceded it.

Background

The 1959–1960 settlement

The Zurich Agreement between the Greek and Turkish prime ministers was reached on 11 February 1959. The London Agreements, which brought in the two community leaders and the United Kingdom, followed later that month. They ended the armed campaign launched in 1955 by EOKA, the Greek Cypriot organization led by Colonel Georgios Grivas that aimed at ENOSIS (union with Greece), and they ended 307 years of Ottoman and then British administration of the island, which had begun in 1571.

The settlement rested on three treaties and a constitution:

• Treaty of Establishment between the United Kingdom and Cyprus, which retained the British Sovereign Base Areas.
• Treaty of Guarantee between Cyprus, Greece, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.
• Treaty of Alliance between Cyprus, Greece and Türkiye, providing for small Greek and Turkish military contingents on the island.
• The 1960 Constitution, whose “basic articles” were declared unamendable.

The Republic was proclaimed on 16 August 1960 and was admitted to the United Nations the following month.

What the 1960 order provided

The Republic was designed as a partnership state between two communities, not as a unitary state with a minority. The main safeguards were:

Feature	1960 arrangement
Head of state	Greek Cypriot President and Turkish Cypriot Vice-President, each elected by their own community
Vetoes	Separate presidential and vice-presidential vetoes on foreign affairs, defence and security
Council of Ministers	Seven Greek Cypriot and three Turkish Cypriot ministers
House of Representatives	70:30 ratio, with separate majorities required for certain laws, including taxation
Public service	70:30 ratio
Armed forces	60:40 ratio
Communal institutions	Separate Communal Chambers and separate municipalities in the five largest towns

The Treaty of Guarantee, in Article I, obliged Cyprus to maintain its independence, territorial integrity and constitutional order and banned both union with any other state and partition. In Article II, Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom recognized and guaranteed that state of affairs. Article IV provided that, if a breach occurred, the guarantors would consult and, where common action proved impossible, each reserved the right to act with the sole aim of re-establishing the state of affairs created by the treaty.

From 30 November to 21 December 1963

On 30 November 1963, President Archbishop Makarios put forward 13 proposed constitutional amendments. Among other things they would have abolished the vetoes of the President and the Vice-President, ended the separate majorities in the House, unified the municipalities and the administration of justice, and replaced the fixed ratios in the public service and security forces with population-based ones. Turkish Cypriots and Ankara regarded this as dismantling the basic articles of a constitution that was not open to amendment. Türkiye formally rejected the proposals on 16 December 1963.

Fighting broke out in Nicosia on the night of 20–21 December 1963, and the Turkish Cypriots call that date “Bloody Christmas” (Kanlı Noel). Turkish and Turkish Cypriot sources describe a systematic Greek Cypriot armed campaign under a plan known as the Akritas Plan, which they say led to the expulsion of roughly 30,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103 villages. Over the following weeks, Turkish Cypriot officials and civil servants stopped taking part in the organs of state. Greek Cypriot accounts dispute this interpretation. They emphasize that armed Turkish Cypriot groups were also active, that the amendments were an attempt to make the state function, and that Turkish Cypriot officials withdrew from their posts of their own accord. A British-led truce force under General Peter Young drew the Green Line through Nicosia on 30 December 1963. A conference in London in January 1964 failed to produce agreement, and the matter went to the Security Council.

Key dates

Date	Event
11 Feb 1959	Zurich Agreement between Greece and Türkiye
16 Aug 1960	Republic of Cyprus proclaimed
30 Nov 1963	Makarios’s 13-point amendment proposal
16 Dec 1963	Proposals rejected by Ankara
21 Dec 1963	Armed attacks in Nicosia and beyond
30 Dec 1963	Green Line drawn in Nicosia
4 Mar 1964	UNSC Resolution 186 adopted
27 Mar 1964	UNFICYP begins operating

What Resolution 186 actually says

The operative paragraphs are short and worth reading closely:

• The Council calls on all member states to refrain from any action or threat of action likely to worsen the situation in “the sovereign Republic of Cyprus” or to endanger international peace.
• It asks “the Government of Cyprus, which has the responsibility for the maintenance and restoration of law and order,” to take all additional measures needed to stop violence and bloodshed.
• It calls on “the communities in Cyprus and their leaders” to act with the utmost restraint.
• It recommends a UN peacekeeping force, to be created “with the consent of the Government of Cyprus,” with its composition and size set by the Secretary-General in consultation with the governments of Cyprus, Greece, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.
• It sets the force’s function: to prevent a recurrence of fighting and, as necessary, to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of law and order and a return to normal conditions.
• It also provides for a mediator, and Sakari Tuomioja of Finland was appointed.

Three features matter for later debates. First, the text never uses the word “legitimate” and does not rule on the 1960 constitutional dispute. Second, it nonetheless addresses the administration then in Nicosia as the Government of Cyprus and makes its consent a condition of the UN presence. Third, it refers separately to “the communities,” a plural that acknowledges there are two. Each of the competing readings below begins from one of these features.

Key Players & Positions

The United Nations

The UN has treated the Republic of Cyprus as a continuing member state since 1960. UNFICYP’s mandate has been renewed repeatedly since 1964, and Council language on the settlement has long referred to a State of Cyprus with a single sovereignty, international personality and citizenship, comprising two politically equal communities in a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation, as in Resolution 1251 (1999). Resolution 541 (1983) described the declaration of the TRNC as legally invalid. UN Secretary-General reports generally use the term “Turkish Cypriot leader” and “Greek Cypriot leader” for the two sides in negotiations.

The Republic of Cyprus (Greek Cypriot administration)

The Republic of Cyprus holds that it is the sole internationally recognized government of the whole island and that Resolution 186 confirms this. Its legal arguments have invoked a “doctrine of necessity” to justify the continued functioning of the state after Turkish Cypriot officials left their posts. It maintains that the 1963 amendments were meant to remove obstacles to governance, and it says the Turkish Cypriot side’s withdrawal and Türkiye’s later military action in 1974 caused the division. In the 1964 Council debates, Cypriot representatives also argued that the Treaty of Guarantee and the Treaty of Alliance were incompatible with Cypriot sovereignty.

Greece and the United Kingdom

Greece has consistently supported the Republic of Cyprus’s international standing and a federal settlement within the UN framework. The United Kingdom, a guarantor power and the holder of the Sovereign Base Areas, has maintained that the 1960 treaties remain in force. It supports a UN-led settlement on the agreed federal basis.

The European Union

The Republic of Cyprus joined the EU on 1 May 2004. Under Protocol 10 of the Accession Treaty, application of the acquis is suspended in the areas where the Republic does not exercise effective control. The EU’s official line backs a comprehensive settlement within the UN framework and treats the Republic as the member state representing the whole island.

The Turkish Cypriot leadership

The TRNC, proclaimed on 15 November 1983 under Rauf Raif Denktaş, and the Turkish Cypriot leadership argue that the Turkish Cypriot people are co-founders of the 1960 order with inherent political equality. They say that this equality was destroyed by force in 1963–1964 and was never restored. They argue that the international system has since dealt with the Greek Cypriot administration as if it were the whole state.

🇹🇷 Official Policy · Primary Sources

Türkiye's Position

• The partnership state was destroyed in 1963, and the UN text recorded the result. According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Greek Cypriot side usurped the Republic of Cyprus in December 1963 by ejecting Turkish Cypriots from the organs of state. Ankara argues that Resolution 186 then treated the Greek Cypriot administration as “the Government of Cyprus” and made its consent the condition for UN action, which institutionalized a status asymmetry between two co-founding peoples. In Ankara’s view, that asymmetry is the root of the settlement deadlock that has lasted six decades.

• The 1960 Treaty of Guarantee remains the legal anchor. Ankara’s position, set out in Foreign Ministry statements and in Türkiye’s statements at the UN, is that Articles I and IV of the Treaty of Guarantee were never repealed by any Security Council text. Resolution 186 contains no language that terminates them. Türkiye argues that the intervention of 20 July 1974 followed the 15 July 1974 coup by the Greek junta and Nicos Sampson, which aimed at ENOSIS, and was an exercise of the right in Article IV after consultation with the United Kingdom.

• The federation model has been tried and is exhausted. The Turkish Foreign Ministry and the Presidency point to the sequence of 1977 and 1979 high-level agreements, the 24 April 2004 Annan Plan referendum (accepted by 64.91% of Turkish Cypriot voters but rejected by 75.83% of Greek Cypriot voters), the failure of the Crans-Montana Conference in July 2017, the April 2021 informal meeting in Geneva, and the 15 October 2024 meeting in New York, where, in Ankara’s reading, no common ground for a federal model emerged. Ankara adds that the Republic of Cyprus entered the EU on 1 May 2004 without having accepted a settlement, which in its view removed any Greek Cypriot incentive to share power.

• Sovereign equality and equal international status must come first. President Erdoğan has repeatedly stated at the UN General Assembly that a lasting solution must start from recognition of the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot people, leading to two sovereign states living side by side on the island. Ankara contends that this treats the Turkish Cypriots on the same footing as the Greek Cypriots, which is what the 1960 order was meant to guarantee.

• Rights over shared resources follow from equality. Türkiye and the TRNC argue that the same principle gives Turkish Cypriots equal rights over offshore resources. The TRNC’s proposals for joint management and revenue sharing in 2011, 2012 and 2019 are examined in Offshore Gas and Equal Rights: The Turkish Cypriot Revenue-Sharing Proposals of 2011, 2012 and 2019. The related maritime arguments appear in The Equity Principle at Sea: How Islands, Coastlines and Proportionality Shape Türkiye's Continental Shelf Case.

Source Comparison

The sharpest divergence among sources lies not in the text of the resolution, which all sides can quote, but in what weight they give to its context.

Question	UN / Republic of Cyprus / EU framing	Turkish primary-source framing
What does “Government of Cyprus” mean in Res. 186?	The continuing government of the member state; confirmation of continuity	The administration then in Nicosia, after Turkish Cypriots had been removed from the organs of state
Why did Turkish Cypriots leave the government?	Voluntary withdrawal, partly tied to armed Turkish Cypriot groups	Forced exclusion during the December 1963 attacks, with villages evacuated
Purpose of the 13 amendments	Make the 1960 constitution workable	Abolish the vetoes and ratios that made Turkish Cypriots equal partners
Status of the Treaty of Guarantee	Contested by Cyprus in 1964; guarantors’ rights seen as limited by the UN Charter	In force; Art. IV is the legal basis for the 1974 intervention
Basis of a settlement	Bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality, as in successive Council texts	Federation exhausted; two sovereign equal states
Weight of the 2004 referendum	Greek Cypriot “no” reflected objections to specific plan provisions	64.91% Turkish Cypriot “yes” against 75.83% Greek Cypriot “no”, followed by unconditional EU entry

Most English-language coverage describes the Republic of Cyprus simply as “Cyprus” and the TRNC as a “breakaway” entity. That shorthand follows the UN’s practice but leaves out the 1960 partnership, the 1963 events and the text of the treaties. Turkish primary sources such as the Foreign Ministry’s Cyprus pages and statements at the UN emphasize those omitted points. A reader who wants to compare the two accounts should place the 1960 Constitution, the Treaty of Guarantee and S/RES/186 (1964) side by side. The site’s Editorial Principles and Primary Source Standards explain how we cite such documents.

The Council that adopted Resolution 186 is also the body at the centre of the reform debate. Türkiye’s argument that the global system should not be run by only five powers is set out in Doctrine Review: UN Security Council Reform: What ‘The World Is Bigger Than Five’ Means and in Polity Review: ‘The World Is Bigger Than Five’: Türkiye’s Case for UN Security Council Reform. Readers who want the wider diplomatic context can also consult Regions & Powers: The World Is Bigger Than Five: Türkiye on UN Security Council Reform, Gaza Diplomacy and COP31.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• UNFICYP: the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, established under Resolution 186 and operational from 27 March 1964. It patrols the buffer zone that grew out of the Green Line.
• Green Line: the ceasefire line drawn in Nicosia on 30 December 1963 and later extended across the island.
• ENOSIS: the Greek nationalist aim of union between Cyprus and Greece, pursued by EOKA and prohibited by Article I of the Treaty of Guarantee.
• Treaty of Guarantee (1960): the treaty under which Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom guaranteed the independence, territorial integrity and constitutional order of Cyprus; Article IV sets out the guarantors’ right of action.
• Bi-communal, bi-zonal federation: the settlement framework used in successive UN resolutions and rejected by Ankara and the TRNC as exhausted.
• Sovereign equality: the Turkish Cypriot and Turkish thesis that the two peoples of the island stand on an equal international footing, which underlies the two-state position.

Related reading on this site: Offshore Gas and Equal Rights, The Equity Principle at Sea, Editorial Principles and Primary Source Standards, Reader FAQ: Sources, Method and Perspective at The Quiet Argument and the homepage, which lists the site’s other Island Ledger guides. For the wider argument about the Security Council’s composition, see Region Scope: ‘The World Is Bigger Than Five’: Türkiye’s Case for UN Security Council Reform.

The Quiet Argument presents these analyses from a Türkiye-informed perspective, setting out Ankara’s official doctrines alongside the legal and historical reasoning behind them. Claims are tied wherever possible to primary sources such as treaty texts, UN documents, archival records and official statements, so readers can verify them independently.