"UK mulled troop backing for Makarios
Sat Jan 1, 2005 05:56 AM GMT
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By Paul Majendie
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain drew up contingency plans in 1974 to send up to 12,000 troops to help restore Greek Cypriot President Archbishop Makarios, deposed in a coup which triggered the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
But defence officials warned that British troops faced becoming badly bogged down fighting insurgents in a Northern Ireland-style conflict.
Official documents from the time, released on Saturday by the National Archives, offer intriguing insights into how London reacted to the crisis in Cyprus, which had become independent from Britain in 1960.
Turkey occupied the north of the Mediterranean island in 1974 after a brief coup in Nicosia which was engineered by the military then ruling Greece."
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