Cyprus could become another Ukraine or Gaza, leader of Turkish Cypriots warns

TURKEY will not accept a one-state solution for Cyprus and a “little flare-up” on the divided island could spark a conflict like Gaza or Ukraine, the leader of the Turkish north warned.

“If you shoot one Turkish soldier you will have 10,000 soldiers on the ground,” Ersin Tatar, the Cambridge-educated president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), told The Telegraph in an interview at his colonial-era mansion in the divided capital of Nicosia.

“Turkish Cypriots are not alone – we have 85 million Turks behind us ... just 40 miles away. A little flare-up, that is what people are fearing. Look at what happened in Gaza. And before that, Ukraine. Before that, Bosnia.” Mr Tatar’s warning comes ahead of his meeting with Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, in New York today, amid renewed efforts to solve the frozen conflict 50 years after it first erupted.

They are expected to discuss the work so far of María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar, a Colombian diplomat and Mr Guterres’ personal envoy, who has been sent to Cyprus to try to kickstart talks after years of stalemate.

Greek Cypriots want to see the island united under the flag of the Republic of Cyprus. That would involve Turkey giving back the northern territory it seized during what Turkish Cypriots call “the intervention” in response to a Greek military coup and attempted union with Greece in 1974.

The Greek Cypriots regard the TRNC as a rogue state and say the tens of thousands of Turkish troops who are stationed there must leave the island.

“I will spare no effort to realise the common dream of reunification,” Nikos Christodoulides, the president of the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, said recently – a stance backed by Britain.

At stake is peace on an island of 1.2 million people, where the British Army has two key military bases.

Greece and Turkey are also both members of Nato.

Some of the 15,000 British expats living in the TRNC sympathise with the Turkish Cypriots.

“The Turkish Cypriots have tried, they really have. I think the two-state solution is the only way,” said Peter Wilkins, a former police officer from London.