Turkish Cypriots’ sovereignty is “not up for negotiation”, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar said in his speech to mark the 41st anniversary of the north’s unilateral declaration of independence on Friday.
“We are shouting on every platform that we can only enter a new negotiation process once our sovereign equality and equal international status has been ratified,” he said, adding that he is “happy to present this policy to the whole world”.
He also expressed his gratitude to Turkey and the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in this regard, making reference to Erdogan’s calls for the international community to recognise the north at the United Nations General Assembly in recent years.
“Turkey is making our voices heard when we could not make them heard ourselves, and is telling the world about us,” he said, adding, “we will never compromise while defending our rightful cause.”
“We have no eyes on anyone else’s rights. We only care about our own rights,” he said, while insisting that his stance on the Cyprus problem is bearing fruit.
“To those asking what we have done, we have accomplished many things. We said we would go for a two-state solution, we said we would improve our relations with Turkey, and we have achieved this with integration and unity,” he said.
He also referred to the informal dinner he attended with President Nikos Christodoulides and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in October, saying he had called for embargoes on the north to be lifted and that he had told Guterres that “on the contrary, the Greek Cypriots’ pressure on us is increasing”.
“Education, construction, and tourism. They are trying to harm us by attacking us in an unusual way,” he said.
Additionally, he said Cyprus’ two sides could “share the water coming from Turkey”, which has been flowing into the north since an undersea pipeline was completed in 2015. He also said he “looks favourably” on the opening of new crossing points, and on a planned enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem involving the island’s guarantor powers.
“My suggestion would be for the motherlands to come to the table as well,” he said, referring to Greece and Turkey.
Looking outwards, he said, “the Turkish Cypriot people are increasing their status with new achievements in the Turkic world”, and added that he wished to thank Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, though Christodoulides’ appearance in Baku last week suggests that Azerbaijan may be changing tack on the Cyprus problem.
Tatar was joined at the anniversary celebrations by Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, who said in his speech that the Cyprus problem is “our national cause”.
Additionally, Erdogan penned a letter to Tatar in which he said the Cyprus problem “can only be resolved in a just and sustainable manner based on the realities on the island by registering the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot people.”
