Turkish FM: GC’s don’t even want to share their hospitals with TCs

GREEK Cypriots “don’t even want to share their hospitals” with Turkish Cypriots, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (right) said on Friday last week.

Mr Çavuşoğlu attributed the words to Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades during a frank live media broadcast in which he reacted to comments made earlier in the week by UN chief Antonio Guterres that he plans to hold a “five-party meeting” on Cyprus following next month’s TRNC presidential elections.

“We have said over and over again that we will no longer negotiate for a federation on the Cyprus issue,” Mr Çavuşoğlu has said.

“Anastasiades once even told me that they don’t even want to share their hospitals with Turkish Cypriots. The Greek Cypriots side’s attitude does not allow for a federation.”

Mr Çavuşoğlu stressed that any attempt to resume talks for a federal solution from where they left off in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in 2017, would be “doomed to failure”.

“Now that the negotiations are over, it [the attempt to form a federation] has failed,” he said.

Mr Çavuşoğlu said that he had previously held informal discussions with Mr Anastasiades about the possibility of a “two-state” solution, but that Mr Anastasiades had told him there was no international support for such a move and instead suggested a “confederation” as a more realistic option.

“Of course our preference is for a solution other than a federation,” Mr Çavuşoğlu added. “If a two-state, confederation or similar ideas come up, then we can evaluate them.”

Prime Minister Ersin Tatar, also reacting to Mr Guterres’s remarks, said that “even [President Mustafa] Akıncı has said that a federation is finished”.

“Mr Guterres has made a statement as if the Cyprus negotiations are going to continue from where they left off in Crans-Montana. This is wrong,” he said.

“Everyone knows, everyone can see, that there is no common ground or vision for a solution with the Greek Cypriot side.”

Meanwhile Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kudret Özersay held a video call earlier this week with UN Undersecretary General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

Dr Özersay informed Mr Lacroix about “Greek Cypriot provocations” on the border which have “increased recently”.