304. Message From Foreign Secretary Lloyd to Secretary of State Dulles 0

Harold and I were very grateful for your understanding message about Cyprus handed to Caccia on January 21.1

As you know the Greek and Turkish Foreign Ministers met in Paris from January 18 to 20 and we have had a general account of their discussions.2 These seem to have gone reasonably well and views were exchanged on a number of detailed points. I understand that both Ministers then decided to report back and that they are considering the possibility of a further meeting which the two Prime Ministers might also attend and that this may take place very early in February. I therefore thought it right to see the Greek Ambassador on January 26 and assure him of our sincere wish to see the talks succeed. Nothing could please us more than a firm Greek-Turkish understanding on the basis of which we could build an agreed final solution of the Cyprus problem and I do not want the Greeks to have any misconception on this score.

I also gave the Ambassador a friendly warning that in the absence of any new agreement we would be bound to go ahead with internal [Page 762] arrangements in Cyprus and that the Greek Government should not be surprised or suspicious if we soon let them know of steps in this direction. Since my talk with the Greek Ambassador my colleagues and I have decided that the Electoral Bill for a Turkish House of Representatives mentioned in Harold’s message of January 173 to you should be published on January 29. As you know, we had originally proposed to publish it on January 15 but decided to defer publication in order to give the Greek-Turkish talks in Paris the best possible chance of success. The Turks wanted delay at that time but they are now in favour of publication and think that this may assist the progress of the talks. We ourselves believe that this may be so, and in any case for the reasons explained in Harold’s message we feel bound to go ahead. We have, however, decided only to publish the Electoral Bill on January 29 and to delay the decision on publishing the Report on Municipal Government until we see how things go.

We are giving the Greeks twenty-four hours notice of our intention to publish and repeating our assurances of good will in success of their talks with the Turks. It will of course be made clear to them that the Bill will only be an enabling act to carry forward the principle of communal autonomy which we understand to be generally agreed by all concerned and will only make it possible for elections to be held. The timing and circumstances in which the elections would take place will of course be for separate decision.

I wanted you to have this advance warning of what we are doing and to tell you again how grateful we are for the renewed assurances of your interest and good will in your message of January 21.4

  1. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204. Secret. Enclosure to a letter from Hood to Dulles, January 27. A notation on the source text indicates the letter was received at 9:30 p.m. Another notations reads: “Sec saw.”
  2. Document 302.
  3. See Document 303.
  4. Document 301.
  5. Printed from an unsigned copy.