CYPRUS: Making Progress

After the Greek Cypriot underground EOKA offered on Christmas Eve to change its terroristic course on Cyprus if the British would "do the same," Britain's tough Major General Kenneth Darling announced, "We will continue to hunt down lawbreakers."

British tommies scoured the mountains for EOKA terrorists, but last week, Britain's Cyprus Governor Sir Hugh Foot, grateful for the absence of incidents, declared in a broadcast: "In the past 21 days we have made good progress." If violence were abandoned "for good," promised Foot, Archbishop Makarios, exiled leader of the Greek Cypriots, could return to the island, and "we could finish with the emergency altogether." As a further gesture. Foot ordered 35 EOKA suspects released from detention camps "following a review of their cases."

This becalming atmosphere reflected, in part, a change of heart among those outside powers concerned with Cyprus. Greece and Turkey, not on speaking terms two months ago, seem mutually appalled by disorder's reign, and are making private efforts to narrow their differences. Greece's Ambassador to Turkey has been shuttling between Athens and Ankara, setting the stage for a meeting in Paris this week between Turkish Foreign Minister Fatin Rustu Zorlu and Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Averoff-Tossizza. Greece is moving closer to abandoning its cry of enosis (union with Greece) and Turkey its demand for partition, in favor of eventual independence for the island, with rights of the Turkish minority guaranteed.