Cyprus had experienced a break in direct rule from Constantinople in 688, when Justinian II and the Umayyad caliph 'Abd al-Malik had signed an unusual treaty neutralizing the island, which had been subject to Arab raids.

For almost three hundred years, Cyprus has been a kind of condominium of the Empire and the Caliphate, and although both sides have frequently violated the treaty, the arrangement lasts until Emperor Nikephoros in 965 gains Cyprus completely for the Empire.

The revived morale and confidence of Constantinople in the East shows itself in the crusading zeal of Nikephoros and his nephew John Tzimiskes for the reconquest of Syria and the Holy Land, for which the Empire is now poised.