Cyprus of Turkish territory. Meanwhile, by 1964, "enosis" was a Greek policy that could not be abandoned; Makarios and the Greek prime minister Georgios Papandreou agreed that "enosis" should be the ultimate aim and King Constantine wished Cyprus "a speedy union with the mother country". Greece dispatched 10,000 troops to Cyprus to counter a possible Turkish invasion. On 15 July 1974, the Greek military junta under Dimitrios Ioannides carried out a coup d'état in Cyprus, to unite the island with Greece. The coup ousted president Makarios III and replaced him with pro-enosis nationalist Nikos Sampson. In response to the coup, five
Greek–Turkish relations The Greek government was, due to its financial and diplomatic dependence on Britain, forced to disavow any aims for unification with Cyprus. In the 1950s, the Cyprus issue flared up again when the Greek Cypriots, under Archbishop Makarios, claimed union with Greece, and the EOKA group launched a paramilitary movement on the island - mainly against the British, but also inflicting collateral damage to other parties and civilians. Eventually, Greek Prime Minister Alexander Papagos took the Cyprus issue to the United Nations. Turkish nationalist sentiment, angered by the discrimination against the Turkish Cypriots, became inflamed at the idea that Cyprus