Spyros Kyprianou, 69; Led a Divided Cyprus for 11 Years

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Former President Spyros Kyprianou, a leader of hard-line Greek Cypriots opposed to the war-divided island’s breakaway Turkish state, died Tuesday at a Nicosia hospital. He was 69.

Kyprianou, who was hospitalized Saturday, died of pelvic cancer. He was president for 11 years until 1988 and remained a powerful voice opposed to concessions to the Turkish Cypriot minority.

Cyprus has been divided since the Turkish army invaded in July 1974 and seized the northern third of the island. The invasion was prompted by a Greek-backed coup on the island by supporters of union with Greece.

Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf R. Denktash offered his condolences to Kyprianou’s family Tuesday, but made a passing swipe at his old political foe, saying: “He defended a cause that he believed in, but it was a cause that did no good to Cyprus.”

Kyprianou was born in Limassol, a port and commercial center and the second-largest town in Cyprus, one of nine children of a prosperous businessman.

He studied economics and commerce at the City of London College and law at Gray’s Inn before returning to Cyprus, where he became the protege of the island’s first post-independence president, Archbishop Makarios.

Makarios chose the 28-year-old former law student as foreign minister when the island gained independence from Britain in 1960. But Kyprianou was forced to resign in 1972 after a disagreement with the then-ruling Greek junta.

In July 1974, national guard troops, led by officers from mainland Greece, launched a coup that toppled Makarios and set up a government aimed at joining Greece. Within days, Turkey--opposed to any union--sent troops to invade in a bid to remove the new government.

The next month, the junta ruling Greece fell, replaced by a democratic government, and the Cyprus coup collapsed. Makarios was restored, and the Turkish military held 37% of the island.

Makarios called back Kyprianou, who had opposed the coup and resisted Greek mainland influence on the island. Kyprianou was named an advisor and a member of the Cypriot delegation to the United Nations.

In 1976 elections, Kyprianou became president of the Cypriot parliament, and when Makarios died in 1977, he was elected to serve the last few months of the archbishop’s five-year presidential term. Kyprianou was reelected unopposed in January 1978.

In June 1979, Kyprianou and Denktash agreed on a 10-point agenda for a peace settlement based on Cyprus’ becoming a two-zone federal state. But talks to negotiate the details broke down.

Kyprianou was reelected to another five-year term in February 1983. In November of that year, the Turkish Cypriots proclaimed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Only Turkey recognized the breakaway entity.

Kyprianou and Denktash met in January 1985, but no progress was made, and three years later Kyprianou lost in presidential elections.

Kyprianou is survived by his wife and two sons.

A state funeral will be held in Nicosia, on Thursday.