The founding documents of Cyprus's independence set some requirements for its foreign policy and linked the republic to three NATO members--Turkey, Greece, and Britain--through a Treaty of Alliance and a Treaty of Guarantee. These treaties, calling for the motherlands to garrison troops on the island and for the three NATO countries to guarantee and protect the independence of the republic, seemed to constrain or contradict the commitment to nonalignment enshrined in the constitution. Cypriots complained about these implied limits on their sovereignty, but in time developed foreign policies that were independent of the motherlands.

Data as of January 1991