The 1964 Istanbul Greek Expulsion, a Treaty Abrogated Over Cyprus

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

On 16 March 1964, amid the escalating Cyprus dispute with Greece, the Turkish government unilaterally abrogated the 1930 Greek-Turkish Convention of Establishment, Commerce and Navigation, the treaty under which Greek nationals had been permitted to remain resident in Turkey since the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Greek passport holders resident in Istanbul, distinct in law from the far larger number of Greek Orthodox Rum still holding Turkish citizenship, were stripped of their residency and given short notice to leave, permitted to take only a small fixed sum in currency and a single bag, with their bank accounts frozen and their property and businesses seized.

Alexandris documents that the Turkish government initially described the expulsions as directed at individuals judged dangerous to state security, before a government spokesman later acknowledged that, absent a change in Greece's position on Cyprus, the whole Greek national population of Istanbul might be expelled. The measure functioned as a tool of diplomatic pressure over Cyprus rather than a security response to any individual conduct, and expulsions continued through 1965.