Turkish president reiterates Ankara’s help for self-declared TRNC in speech delivered on anniversary of 1974 invasion.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated peace talks on the way forward for Cyprus can happen solely between “the 2 states” on the divided Mediterranean island.
In a speech delivered on Tuesday within the divided Cypriot capital of Nicosia, Erdogan reiterated Ankara’s help for the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) amid a dispute that’s damaging Turkey’s relations with the European Union and Greece.
“The brand new negotiation course of can solely be carried out between the 2 states. We’re proper and we are going to defend our proper to the top,” he stated.
Greek Cypriots, who symbolize the island internationally and are backed by the European Union, reject a two-state deal which might indicate a sovereign standing to a breakaway state they view as unlawful.
Turkey is the one nation on this planet to now recognise the TRNC and retains 35,000 troops there.
Erdogan’s remarks got here because the TRNC marked the forty seventh anniversary of a Turkish invasion that cut up the island in two.
Decked out in purple and white Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags, the celebratory temper in north Nicosia stood in stark distinction with the sombre temper within the south, the place Greek Cypriots had been woken by air raid sirens marking the day Turkish forces landed almost half a century in the past.
The 1974 Turkish invasion got here 5 days after a Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the army authorities then ruling Greece.
Many years of disagreement
For many years, the United Nations has been trying to piece Cyprus again collectively as a two-zone federation – the one factor the 2 sides had, till just lately, been in a position to conform to in precept.
However in April, the world physique didn’t bridge disagreements over restarting peace talks, which collapsed in acrimony in 2017.
The simmering dispute has come into sharper focus in recent times due to competing claims over offshore vitality reserves, and a latest reopening by Turkish Cypriots of a part of Varosha, a ghost resort that was the hub of Cyprus’s tourism trade previous to 1974.
Erdogan was anticipated to go to Varosha in a while Tuesday as a part of his two-day official go to to the TNRC.
Turkish Cypriot officers on Tuesday introduced plans for the potential resettlement of Varosha, a transfer too additionally prone to infuriate Greek Cypriots as basically staking possession over an space the United Nations says must be positioned beneath the management of peacekeepers.
Turkish Cypriot chief Ersin Tatar stated his administration would scrap the army standing of about 3.5 p.c of Varosha and permit beneficiaries to use to a fee mandated to supply compensation or restitution of properties.
On Monday, Erdogan stated {that a} “everlasting and sustainable answer” to the island’s division “can solely be potential” by considering that there are “two separate states and two separate individuals”.
“The worldwide neighborhood will ultimately settle for this actuality,” Erdogan informed Turkish Cypriot lawmakers in Cyprus’s breakaway north, including that Ankara would construct a brand new authorities advanced to symbolise the state of northern Cyprus.
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades stated Erdogan’s remarks had been “an anticipated repeat of Turkey’s unacceptable positions”.
The EU has additionally dominated out a two-state deal.
European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen stated in Nicosia earlier this month that the 27 member-bloc, which Cyprus joined in 2004, would “by no means, ever” settle for such an association.