Note for Liam Cosgrave by the Department of External Affairs
'The Cyprus Question'

In the first week or ten days of the UN Assembly there will be a debate in Plenary session on the recommendation of the General Committee as to whether or not the Cyprus question should be included in the agenda.

It is submitted that the Irish delegation must vote for inclusion. The struggle of the Cypriot people for the right to determine its own future – so reminiscent in its present phase to events in Ireland in 1919/20 – is being watched with sympathy and admiration by the Irish people. Only Britain’s plea of ‘strategic necessity’ prevents the attainment of their age-long desire for union with Greece.

We understand that it is the intention of the USA to try to keep the question off the agenda on the ground that discussion would do more harm than good. There would seem to be no validity in this contention. Disappointment and resentment over the failure of the Assembly in 1954 to give some moral support to their cause led to the start of the Cypriot physical force movement. In 1955 the Assembly again held its hand to allow of further Anglo-Greek negotiations but the past year has seen the deportation of Archbishop Makarios, the acknowledged spokesman of the Greek Cypriots, and an intensification of coercive measures in the island.

Particularly in view of Britain’s highhanded action in Egypt there can be little doubt that the Cyprus question will reach the agenda this year. In any event it would seem to be up to the Irish delegation to voice this country’s approval of discussion of the Greek request for the application of the right of self-determination to the population of Cyprus.

There is no analogy between the Cyprus question and the Partition problem.