History of Cyprus since 1878 1948, King Paul of Greece declared that Cyprus desired union with Greece. In 1950 the Orthodox Church of Cyprus presented a referendum according to which around 97% of the Greek Cypriot population wanted the union. The United Nations accepted the Greek petition and "enosis" became an international issue. In 1952 both Greece and Turkey became members of NATO. After the war, a delegation from Cyprus submitted a demand for enosis to London. The demand was rejected but the British proposed a more liberal constitution and a 10-year programme of social and economic development. Led by Archbishop Makarios, the Greek Cypriot
Accession of Turkey to the European Union in the European Union. The former Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis stated that Turkish membership of the EU could only be predicated upon, "full compliance, full accession" in December 2006. In 2005 the European Commission referred to relations between Turkey and Greece as "continuing to develop positively" while also citing a key barrier to progress being Turkey's ongoing claim of "casus belli" over a dispute about territorial waters boundaries. In September 2017, Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, mentioned that halting accession talks with Turkey would be a strategic mistake by the European Union, amid a war of words raging between