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
Times of Cyprus character for Cypriots, although he was a firm believer in independence for Cyprus rather than union with Greece. In 1958 he stated: 'I have sympathy for the Cypriots as a civilized people who have for generations been denied the ordinary rights of self-rule and freedom.' Foley's anti-colonial stance led to him being prosecuted in 1956 by the British colonial government in Cyprus for breaking the Emergency Powers Act (Cyprus). At a court hearing on 2 January 1957 Foley was fined £50 for publishing an article on the British treatment of Greek Cypriots, under the title 'Hatred, Despair and Anger' which