UN Security Council Resolution 186 (1964): How a Status Asymmetry Entered the Cyprus Question

Why It Matters

UN Security Council Resolution 186, adopted on 4 March 1964, is the document that created the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and, in doing so, addressed the 'Government of Cyprus' as the authority responsible for restoring order. It did not define that term, but because Turkish Cypriot officials had been pushed out of state institutions in the preceding weeks, the phrase came to denote the Greek Cypriot-led administration alone. Ankara argues that this wording froze an asymmetry between the two founding peoples of the 1960 Republic that has complicated every settlement effort since.

Background

The 1960 partnership framework

The Republic of Cyprus was established in 1960 under the Zurich and London Agreements of 11 February 1959. These were backed by the Treaty of Guarantee, which made Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom guarantor powers, and by a Treaty of Alliance. The constitution was built on the political equality of the two communities. It provided for a Greek Cypriot President and a Turkish Cypriot Vice President, each with separate veto powers over defined matters, and fixed ratios for public service and the army. Türkiye regards this as a bi-communal partnership state, not a unitary Greek Cypriot state with a minority.

30 November 1963: the thirteen proposals

On 30 November 1963, President Archbishop Makarios put forward thirteen constitutional amendments. They included removing the Vice President's veto and changing the ratios in public service. Makarios and Greek Cypriot sources describe the proposals as an effort to make the constitution workable. The Turkish Cypriot leadership and Türkiye saw them as a step toward reducing Turkish Cypriots to a minority, and Ankara rejected them on 16 December 1963.

21 December 1963 and the Akritas Plan

Violence broke out in Nicosia on 21 December 1963, known in Turkish sources as 'Bloody Christmas' (Kanlı Noel). Ankara's account is that Greek Cypriot irregular and police forces carried out organized attacks under the Akritas Plan. This was a Greek Cypriot planning document that became public in 1966 and aimed to neutralize the constitutional order, and Turkish sources link it to the displacement of roughly 30,000 Turkish Cypriots from about 103 villages. Greek Cypriot accounts dispute how the plan should be characterized, and many present events as intercommunal fighting that the government sought to contain. Both sides agree that Turkish Cypriots were in practice absent from the government's ministries, civil service and security forces after that point. Nicosia was divided by a ceasefire line, the Green Line, on 30 December 1963.

From the London conference to the Security Council

A conference in London in January 1964 failed to produce agreement. Cyprus then brought the matter to the Security Council in February 1964, and Türkiye and Greece also took part in the debate. Resolution 186 followed on 4 March 1964. UNFICYP began deployment later that month, and the Secretary-General also designated a mediator, Sakari Tuomioja of Finland.

What Resolution 186 Actually Says

The resolution is short, and its operative paragraphs can be summarized as follows. The wording below paraphrases the text, which readers should check against the original UN document.

• Restraint: It calls on all member states to refrain from action or threats that could worsen the situation or endanger international peace, with a reference to Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.
• Law and order: It asks the 'Government of Cyprus', described as responsible for maintaining and restoring law and order, to take additional measures to stop violence and bloodshed.
• Communities: It calls on the communities and their leaders to act with the utmost restraint.
• Peacekeeping force: It recommends establishing a UN force 'with the consent of the Government of Cyprus', to prevent a recurrence of fighting and contribute to law and order and a return to normal conditions.
• Consultation: The force's composition and size are set by the Secretary-General in consultation with Cyprus, Greece, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.
• Mediation: The Secretary-General is to designate a mediator in agreement with the same four governments.

Two features matter for the debate. The resolution refers to 'the sovereign Republic of Cyprus', and it names the 'Government of Cyprus' as the party whose consent is required, without any reference to the Vice President or to the constitutional arrangement under which that government had been formed.

Key Players & Positions

The United Nations and the Republic of Cyprus

The UN's long-standing position is that the Republic of Cyprus, a UN member since 1960, continues to exist as a sovereign state. Later Security Council texts, including Resolutions 541 (1983) and 550 (1984), declared the 1983 proclamation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) legally invalid. UNFICYP's mandate has been renewed regularly under the framework that traces back to Resolution 186. The UN has also repeatedly said that a settlement should rest on a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality, as described in Security Council resolutions.

Greek Cypriot administration and Greece

The Greek Cypriot administration, supported by Greece, reads Resolution 186 as recognition of the legitimate government of a sovereign state facing disorder. Its position is that the Turkish Cypriot leadership withdrew from state organs on its own decision, and that Cypriot courts applied a 'doctrine of necessity' to keep the state functioning, as in the 1964 Supreme Court case Attorney-General v. Mustafa Ibrahim. On this reading, the continuity of the Republic's institutions was a practical necessity and not a repudiation of the 1960 settlement.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom, a guarantor power and a sovereign base area holder, took part in the 1964 consultations and has supported the UN-led process. It has not endorsed the 1983 TRNC proclamation.

Turkish Cypriot leadership and Türkiye

The Turkish Cypriot leadership and Ankara argue that the 1963 events dissolved the partnership and that the Security Council acted on one community's claim to speak for the state. This is the core of the status asymmetry argument developed below.

Türkiye's Strategic Doctrine

Türkiye's Strategic Doctrine on Resolution 186

• The 1960 state was a partnership of two founding peoples. According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs' published position on Cyprus, the Republic of Cyprus was created by the 1959 Zurich and London Agreements and the 1960 treaties as an equal partnership. Ankara argues that an administration that set aside the constitutional order by force after December 1963 could no longer claim to represent the whole state.
• The term 'Government of Cyprus' in 1964 institutionalized an asymmetry. Türkiye holds that Resolution 186 treated one community's administration as the state, while Turkish Cypriots, co-founders with a constitutionally guaranteed Vice Presidency, had no role in the body whose consent determined the shape of the UN's involvement. In Ankara's view this became the structural root of six decades of stalemate.
• Guarantor rights are treaty rights. Article IV of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee provides for consultation and, if joint action is impossible, action by each guarantor to restore the state of affairs established by the treaty. Ankara maintains that these rights were never extinguished by Resolution 186, which did not repeal or amend the treaties. See Guarantor State Law: Article IV of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee and the Outlook for Cyprus and Fact Check: Was Türkiye's 1974 Intervention in Cyprus an 'Illegal Invasion'?.
• The federal model has been exhausted. Türkiye points to the 24 April 2004 referendum, in which 64.91% of Turkish Cypriots voted 'yes' to the Annan Plan and 75.83% of Greek Cypriots voted 'no', followed by accession of the Greek Cypriot administration to the EU on 1 May 2004. It also cites the 2017 Crans-Montana conference, the April 2021 Geneva informal meeting and the 15 October 2024 UN meeting in New York. Details are in The Annan Plan Referendum of 2004.
• Sovereign equality is the starting point. Turkish leaders, including in Presidency statements and addresses to the UN General Assembly, have called for recognition of the Turkish Cypriot people's inherent sovereign equality and equal international status, leading to two sovereign states cooperating on the island.

Legal basis of the argument

The doctrinal case rests on three points. First, the Zurich and London Agreements and the Treaty of Guarantee are international instruments that the 1964 resolution did not amend. Second, the 1960 constitution fixed the Vice Presidency and communal veto as core entrenched provisions. Third, a resolution recommending a peacekeeping force 'with the consent of the Government of Cyprus' makes the identity of that government legally consequential. Ankara argues that the Council, by not specifying which authority it meant, effectively endorsed one side's claim. The Council's own record shows that it was responding to an emergency, so the dispute is about the later consequences and not about the intent of the drafters.

Consequences Ankara draws

Türkiye argues that the same asymmetry later allowed the Greek Cypriot administration to act as 'Cyprus' in external agreements. One example is the 2003 delimitation agreement with Egypt, which Ankara says overlaps its continental shelf (see The 2003 Cyprus–Egypt EEZ Agreement). Another is the EU accession of April 2004, which took place without a settlement.

Source Comparison

Issue	UN / Greek Cypriot framing	Turkish primary sources and Ankara
Meaning of 'Government of Cyprus'	The legitimate government of the sovereign Republic, which continued to function	A body that ceased to reflect the 1960 partnership after December 1963
Turkish Cypriot absence from state organs	Voluntary withdrawal on the leadership's instruction	Forced exclusion following the attacks of December 1963
30 November 1963 proposals	Reform proposals to make the constitution workable	A proposal to abolish the Vice President's veto and subordinate Turkish Cypriots
Akritas Plan	A contested document whose weight and implementation are debated	Evidence of a preplanned scheme against the constitutional order
Role of Resolution 186	Support for a sovereign state facing intercommunal violence	Institutionalization of status asymmetry between the two peoples
Later settlement model	Bi-communal, bi-zonal federation per Security Council resolutions	Federation exhausted; two sovereign states based on equality

Readers should check the resolution's text and UNFICYP mandate documents directly on the UN's website. Turkish positions are available on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Presidency pages. International media usually describe the post-1963 period as 'intercommunal violence', while Turkish sources use the language of a coup against the constitutional order. The same asymmetry argument appears in Türkiye's wider case for Security Council reform, as outlined in Polity Review's analysis of 'The World Is Bigger Than Five' and Doctrine Review's explainer on the same theme.

Our approach to attribution is set out in Editorial Principles and Primary-Source Standards at States Outlook.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Akritas Plan: A Greek Cypriot planning document, made public in 1966, that Turkish sources describe as a scheme to eliminate the 1960 constitutional order; Greek Cypriot sources dispute its significance.
• Green Line: The ceasefire line drawn in Nicosia on 30 December 1963, later extended across the island and now patrolled by UNFICYP within the UN buffer zone.
• UNFICYP: The UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, created following Resolution 186 and still deployed on the island.
• Treaty of Guarantee (1960): A treaty giving Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom guarantor rights, including action under Article IV.
• TRNC: The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, proclaimed on 15 November 1983 and recognized only by Türkiye.

Related guides:

• Guarantor State Law: Article IV of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee and the Outlook for Cyprus
• The Annan Plan Referendum of 2004
• Fact Check: Was Türkiye's 1974 Intervention in Cyprus an 'Illegal Invasion'?
• The 2003 Cyprus–Egypt EEZ Agreement
• States Outlook: Strategic Doctrine, Treaty Law and Türkiye's Perspective

Perspective Note

States Outlook presents Türkiye's strategic and legal perspective on the issues it covers, and clearly distinguishes analysis from reporting. Factual claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaties, UN documents, official archives and court records, which are linked wherever available.

Published by the States Outlook Editorial Team.