The Cyprus Portal
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Cyprus (/ˈsaɪprəs/ (listen)), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea south of the Anatolian Peninsula. It is the third-largest and third-most populous island in the Mediterranean, and is south of Turkey and west of Syria. Its capital and largest city is Nicosia.
The earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, and Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC. As a strategic location in the Eastern Mediterranean, it was subsequently occupied by several major powers, including the empires of the Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians, from whom the island was seized in 333 BC by Alexander the Great. Subsequent rule by Ptolemaic Egypt, the Classical and Eastern Roman Empire, Arab caliphates for a short period, the French Lusignan dynasty and the Venetians was followed by over three centuries of Ottoman rule between 1571 and 1878 (de jure until 1914).
Cyprus was placed under the UK's administration based on the Cyprus Convention in 1878 and was formally annexed by the UK in 1914. The future of the island became a matter of disagreement between the two prominent ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots, who made up 77% of the population in 1960, and Turkish Cypriots, who made up 18% of the population. From the 19th century onwards, the Greek Cypriot population pursued enosis, union with Greece, which became a Greek national policy in the 1950s. The Turkish Cypriot population initially advocated the continuation of the British rule, then demanded the annexation of the island to Turkey, and in the 1950s, together with Turkey, established a policy of taksim, the partition of Cyprus and the creation of a Turkish polity in the north. Following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. The crisis of 1963–64 brought further intercommunal violence between the two communities, displaced more than 25,000 Turkish Cypriots into enclaves and brought the end of Turkish Cypriot representation in the republic. On 15 July 1974, a coup d'état was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta in an attempt at enosis. This action precipitated the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July, which led to the capture of the present-day territory of Northern Cyprus and the displacement of over 150,000 Greek Cypriots and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots. A separate Turkish Cypriot state in the north was established by unilateral declaration in 1983; the move was widely condemned by the international community, with Turkey alone recognising the new state. These events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute. (Full article...)
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Ayios Andreas or Tophane is a Neighbourhood, Quarter, Mahalla or Parish of Nicosia, Cyprus. In September 1945, the Ottoman name of Tophane (which means arsenal) was changed to Ayios Andreas, but there is no parish church of that name.
At the last Census (2011) it had a population of 5,767, an increase from a population of 5,185 in 2001. It covers an area in the south-western part of the municipal area of Nicosia, within and without the walls. (Full article...)Cyprus news
- 7 April 2022 – COVID-19 pandemic
- COVID-19 pandemic in Cyprus
- Cyprus will lift their COVID-19-related travel conditions from April 18, ending rules of two years of the pandemic. (Reuters)
- 5 March 2022 – Reactions to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis, International reactions to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Cyprus–Russia relations
- Cyprus denies access for five Russian military vessels to enter its port in Limassol. Whether the military ships could enter Cypriot ports in the first place is controversial, as the international law background is unclear. (Kathimerini Cyprus)
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