NICOSIA (Reuters) - Sirens wailed over Nicosia early on Wednesday as Greek Cypriots remembered the 1974 coup that prompted the Turkish invasion and subsequent partition of the island. At 08.20 a.m. (0620 GMT), the precise time of the attack engineered by the military junta then ruling Greece, President Glafcos Clerides stepped out of the Presidential Palace. In a brief statement to journalists, Clerides, who has just returned from an official visit to Moscow, stressed that adherence to democracy was the only way to ensure the events of July 15, 1974 would never be repeated. All over the island politicians and various organisations are gearing up for the "black anniversaries` with a series of demonstrations and events to remember 1974. Five days after the coup against then Archbishop Makarios, the island`s elected president since independence from Britain in 1960, Turkey invaded Cyprus. During a second wave of military action on August 15, 1974, Turkey secured 37 per cent of the island`s territory and the breakaway Turkish Cypriot administration declared itself a state in 1983. It is recognised only by Ankara. Efforts by the United Nations and the international community to reunite the island have so far failed. Greek Cypriot plans to deploy Russian missiles on the island in the autumn have angered Turkey and further difficulties have arisen over the Cyprus government`s accession negotiations with the EU which the Turkish Cypriots refuse to accept. Their leader Rauf Denktash refuses to return to the U.N. negotiating table until the Cyprus-EU talks are scrapped. Diego Cordovez, the U.N. Secretary-General`s special coordinator who recently visited the island, is expected to resume his efforts in September.