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Criminal Litany. The Turkish ultimatum brought this hesitancy to an end. Cyprus' U.N. Ambassador Zenon Ros-sides frantically asked for an emergency meeting of the Security Council. When it met, at 6:20 p.m. on Friday, Rossides excitedly recited an hour-long litany of alleged Turkish crimes. Turkey's veteran Ambassador Orhan Eralp made a five-minute rebuttal. Refusing to "rehash" the past, Eralp described the Turkish ultimatum as a "note of warning" that called for Greek Cypriot observance of "human rights." He concluded: "The time for words has passed. Let us proceed to action."
Once again, the nonpermanent members of the Council came to the rescue. They produced a new resolution requiring all member states to "refrain from any action or threat of action likely to worsen the situation," and "requested" that U Thant press on with his peacekeeping efforts. Next day there was a breakthrough on the troop bottleneck. Sweden planned to send in an advance force of several hundred men from its contingent with the U.N. force in Gaza. Canada dispatched a small group of officers as a "reconnaissance mission." Another 1,000 Canadian troops prepared to take off for Nicosia this week. Other nations had weighed in with money, the U.S., $2,-000,000; Britain, $1,000,000; Greece, $500,000; Turkey, $100,000.
At week's end Greece and Turkey were no longer eyeball to eyeball. But the truce was still an uneasy one subject to the whims of fanatic Cypriot gunmen of both Greek and Turkish persuasion. The crisis offered a fertile ground for big-power meddling. France's President Charles de Gaulle backed the Greek Cypriot position, which made him a hero to the Greeks, while U.S. President Lyndon Johnson was being burned in effigy in Athens. The Soviet Union was also happily taking sides in a quarrel between NATO partners, and gave down-the-line support to the government of Cyprus' President Archbishop Makarios, who had interrupted his crisis-ridden week to attend the funeral of Greece's King Paul.