Turkey Tells UN the 1974 Cyprus Invasion Was “Legal and Justified”
Turkey has formally submitted a letter to the United Nations declaring that its 1974 military operation in Cyprus was "legal and justified," rejecting the words "invasion" and "occupation" entirely. The letter, dated July 16, 2026, was transmitted by Turkey's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ahmet Yildiz, and requested official circulation as a document of both the General Assembly and the Security Council.
The letter was originally written by Murat Soysal, the representative of the Turkish-occupied north's administration in New York, in response to statements made by Cyprus's representative at a July 8 Security Council meeting on conflict-related sexual violence. That meeting had addressed the impact of the 1974 Turkish military operation on Cypriot women and girls, and Soysal's letter was also a direct attack on a recent European Parliament resolution on the same subject.
"The intervention brought peace and security to the island" — Turkey's letter to the UN
Turkey's position, restated in the document, is that the 1974 intervention was legally valid under the 1959-1960 Treaty of Guarantee, carried out after a coup organized by the Greek military junta and Greek Cypriot collaborators aimed at annexing Cyprus to Greece. The letter claims Turkey acted to stop atrocities against Turkish Cypriots and argues that the intervention "brought peace and security to the island."
The document also repeats Turkey's long-standing argument that Cyprus is made up of "two separate states and two separate peoples," and insists that any future settlement can only be achieved between two sides treated as "sovereign equals with equal international status." Turkey also accused the Greek Cypriot side of exploiting Turkish Cypriot absence from international forums to push a one-sided narrative.
The European Parliament resolution that prompted the response focused specifically on crimes committed against Cypriot women during and after the 1974 operation, a subject Turkey's letter sought to deflect by pointing to alleged violations against Turkish Cypriots between 1963 and 1974.
