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
History of the European Union (1993–2004) hoped that Cyprus would join as a unified island. However, northern Cyprus has remained outside the control of the internationally recognised government of the Republic of Cyprus since the Turkish invasion of 1974. The Annan Plan for the resolution of the Cyprus dispute was rejected by Greek Cypriots in a 2004 referendum. The accession treaties were signed on 16 April 2003 in Athens, admitting Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. Romania and Bulgaria were not among the 10 chosen to accede in 2004. Finally, on 1 May 2004, the Union expanded from 15