Foreign Minister blames America for Ukraine war
TRNC Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu has accused the US of causing the war between Ukraine and Russia.
“As a Turkish Cypriot, when I look at the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it’s very easy to see that . . . the American administration caused this war,” Mr Ertuğruloğlu said during an interview with Armstrong Williams, a Washington DC-based broadcaster.
“They [the US] agitated Russia. Why did they want to do this? It solidified Nato, it solidified American leadership of Nato, it isolated Russia and it made Ukraine feel indebted to the Western world.”
Mr Ertuğruloğlu’s interview for The Armstrong Williams Show took place during his trip last month to the US, when the United Nations General Assembly was taking place in New York, but was only publicised by the TRNC Foreign Ministry earlier this week.
His comments attacking the US come amid an increasing number of reports suggesting the TRNC is seeking closer ties with Russia – particularly in the fields of trade, travel and tourism – via Turkey, which has not taken part in economic sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
The remarks also come against the backdrop of closer ties between the US and the Greek Cypriot administration, after the American government this month fully lifted the embargo on arms sales to the “Republic of Cyprus” in exchange for the Greek Cypriot side “continuing to take the steps necessary to deny Russian military vessels access to ports for refuelling and servicing”.
When the move was announced in September, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned it would lead to an “arms race” on the island.
During the interview Mr Ertuğruloğlu also explained that the acceptance by the international community of Greek Cypriot claims to be the “natural successors of what was the partnership republic” following its breakdown in 1963 was “contrary to the international agreements that established the Republic of Cyprus and the very constitution . . . which said that neither [side] could have the right to claim to be the Republic of Cyprus”.
He said, however, that the “big powers” of the world – the US, UK, Russia, France and China, which are the permanent members of the UN Security Council – “for their own national interests chose to discriminate against the Turkish Cypriots and allow the Greek Cypriots to pretend to be the Republic of Cyprus”.
Asked by Mr Armstrong what he hoped to accomplish in the US, Mr Ertuğruloğlu explained that the President and Foreign Minister of the TRNC travel annually to New York to
follow the sessions of the UN General Assembly, after which the Foreign Minister travels to Washington DC for further contacts with US State Department officials, the press, associations and think tanks.
“Why do we do this? We meet State Department officials [to] challenge them as to the wrongness of American policies towards the Cyprus problem . . . criticising them for spoiling the Greek Cypriots and Greece,” Mr Ertuğruloğlu said.
“It’s not just America that does that, [but] the Western world in general. The Greeks and Greek Cypriots are the spoilt brats of the Western world.”
Put to him by Mr Armstrong that “they are the cradle of civilisation”, Mr Ertuğruloğlu retorted: “If they are, then today’s Greeks have nothing to do with their past. . . They are the most racist and discriminating people that we have encountered. . . It’s as if their reason for existence is to be [the] enemies of Turks.”
He also accused the EU of “violating its own principles and values by allowing the Greek Cypriots to join the bloc before a settlement was reached on the island” in 2004.
Referring to a conversation he once had with Lord David Hannay, the UK’s Special Representative for Cyprus from 1996 to 2003, during which Mr Ertuğruloğlu said Turkish Cypriots were not being treated fairly by the UK, Mr Ertuğruloğlu said: “His response taught me a lesson. He said, in a very colonial, condescending manner: ‘My dear friend, whoever told you that there is anything called fairness in international politics?’.”