Cyprus: Greeks Bearing Gifts

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But Galo Plaza said jubilantly, "Things are going in the right direction." He was also heartened by the imminent U.N. decision to continue the peacekeeping mission on Cyprus for another three months, and he cheerfully outlined his own strategy to newsmen. Unlike Tuomioja and U.S. Special Envoy Dean Acheson. Galo Plaza intends to do his mediating on Cyprus instead of in Geneva, and to concentrate on Makarios instead of on the governments of Turkey and Greece.

Spoiling Food. At week's end Makarios flew to Athens bearing yet another gift—a silver dish as a wedding present for Greece's King Constantine and his new Queen, Anne-Marie of Denmark. Declaring that "my aim has always been and always will be enosis," that is, union of Cyprus with Greece, Makarios met with Premier George Papandreou, and both announced "complete accord" on Makarios' peace offering, though the Greek government was obviously concerned about the official Cypriot delegation currently in Moscow seeking aid from Nikita Khrushchev.

Peace was indeed wonderful, but at week's end it had not much reduced suspicion and racial hatred on Cyprus. Now food was pouring in from the Red Crescent and the U.N., and there was enough to eat even at Kokkina. But the nine tons of food sent by Makarios lay untouched beside the road, slowly spoiling in the hot sun. On one crate, an infuriated Turkish Cypriot had scrawled, "Don't play politics with our stomachs."