TWO-STATE SOLUTION ‘ONLY WAY FORWARD’
PRESIDENT ERSİN TATAR HAMMERS HOME MESSAGE AHEAD OF US TRIP
THE only viable solution to the Cyprus problem is the acceptance of two separate states, President Ersin Tatar said ahead of a trip to the United States.
Tatar made the assessment in an interview with the UK’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper, conducted in the TRNC recently.
In the interview Tatar, referred to by the broadsheet as the “Cambridge-educated president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”, was quoted as saying: “Since 1974 we have had two states, two regions, two sovereign powers in Cyprus living side by side, coexisting. The only way forward is a two-state solution.”
According to the interview, published on Thursday to coincide with Tatar’s visit to Washington DC and ahead of a meeting with United Nations SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres in New York scheduled for yesterday evening TRNC time, Tatar dismissed calls from Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides for the unification of Cyprus as a “waste of time”.
“That’s all past. All those opportunities have been exhausted,” he said.
“How can you unite an island like this after so many years? You cannot possibly unite Cyprus. You have to face the facts and accept reality.”
The Daily Telegraph reported that Tatar also suggested countries such as Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Bangladesh could join Türkiye in recognising the TRNC as an independent state.
“Recognition might take time but as time goes by, we consolidate more,” he said.
The newspaper also noted how “some of the 15,000 British expats living in the TRNC also sympathise with the Turkish Cypriots”.
Reporter Nick Squires spoke to British Residents Society (BRS) president Peter Wilkins, who was quoted as saying: “The Turkish Cypriots have tried, they really have. I think the two-state solution is now the only way.”
BRS deputy chair Mike Diplock told Squires: “After such a long time, the federal arrangement is just not going to work. You can’t keep flogging a dead horse.”
However James Ker-Lindsay, a British professor at the London School of Economics who studies issues of recognition in international politics, claimed that recognition of the TRNC is “not going to happen”.
“In the context of everything we are seeing in Ukraine, the EU and US will not want to be seen to legitimise territorial changes that took place as a result of military action,” he told the Telegraph.
‘TÜRKİYE BACKING US’
Meanwhile President Tatar said before flying to the US that there can be no formal negotiations to solve the Cyprus problem without the sovereign equality of the Turkish Cypriots being affirmed.
Speaking to Cyprus Today’s sister newspaper Kıbrıs, Tatar referred to the role of Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar, the former Colombian foreign minister who has been appointed as the “personal envoy” of UN chief Guterres.
Holguin is halfway into her six-month mission to determine if there is any “common ground” for new formal talks to be launched.
“As we told Holguin, her duty is to determine whether or not there is common ground. If there is common ground, a new process can begin,” Tatar said.
“After I was elected President [in 2020], we put forward a new policy with the support of our Motherland Türkiye. That is, we demand sovereign equality and equal international status.
“We will not start a new negotiation process until this is accepted. There may be different pressures but this position is clear.
“While the Greek Cypriots continued on their way as the ‘Republic of Cyprus’ after they withdrew from negotiating tables or upended the tables in the past, we continue to suffer injustice under isolation and embargoes here.
“In our new policy, absolute sovereign equality and the confirmation of our equal international status are very important.”
He added: “Since our serious goodwill and initiatives were exhausted in the search for a federal solution in the period after 1974, we have now started a new process.
“We can only enter into a new negotiations process when common ground is established. We will also tell the Secretary-General this. We will tell him that the embargoes and isolations must now be lifted.”
Tatar criticised the acceptance of Greek Cypriot leader Christodoulides as the president of the whole of the island, saying: “He can make his voice heard everywhere. Our voice is heard only in the Motherland.
“Thankfully Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan defends the rights of the Turkish Cypriot people everywhere, his voice is heard. . . No matter what the Greek Cypriot leader says, it does not bind us. We are never alone.
“Turkish Cypriots may be under embargoes and isolation but these are used to draw us back to the negotiating table. We do not allow this.
“We have our state and our republic, as well as Türkiye, with its 85 million people, backing us.”
Tatar began his contacts in the US on Thursday in Washington DC. He spoke at a gathering at the Hudson Institute think tank and then held a meeting with senior US State Department officials Joshua Huck, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State overseeing policy for Southern Europe and the Caucasus, and Michele J. Sison, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs.
Later in the day, he gave a briefing to members of the Turkish press based in the American capital.
He told them that his meeting with State Department officials was “particularly productive”.
The US officials are “closely following” the “strong messages” that the TRNC has “brought to the agenda”, Tatar noted, adding that they emphasised that the “embargoes and sanctions” against the TRNC should be lifted.
Tatar said that his meeting with American experts at the Hudson Institute was also “useful” and that the Americans are “closely following the developments in Cyprus”.
The President added that he also made a statement to the “American media” and met with representatives of the Turkish Cypriot and Turkish community in Washington DC.