Cyprus dispute Kingdom of Cyprus. In February 1489 it was seized by the Republic of Venice. Between September 1570 and August 1571 it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, starting three centuries of Turkish rule over Cyprus. Starting in the early nineteenth century, ethnic Greeks of the island sought to bring about an end to almost 300 years of Ottoman rule and unite Cyprus with Greece. The United Kingdom took administrative control of the island in 1878, to prevent Ottoman possessions from falling under Russian control following the Cyprus Convention, which led to the call for union with Greece ("enosis") to grow
Union of the Democratic Centre (Greece) and did not elect any representatives in parliament. From 1998 to 2011, the party president was Neoklis Sarris, and the party operated mostly as a forum of political analysis and public, ideological debates. In the 2009 legislative elections Neoklis Sarris ran for Democratic Revival. In 2012 the Union of the Democratic Centre was reconstructed. Stavros Karabelas was elected new president of the party and shifted the political characteristics of the party to the left. Consequently, in the May 2012 election the party participated as part of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). Union of the Democratic Centre (Greece) The