The Turkish Cypriot side will act “in a constructive manner” at the forthcoming enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem to be held in the Swiss city of Geneva, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar told the United Kingdom’s minister of state for Europe Stephen Doughty on Friday evening.
Doughty visited Tatar at his official residence in northern Nicosia after his meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides, with Tatar at the same time insisting that formal negotiations to solve the Cyprus problem can only begin once the Turkish Cypriots’ sovereign equality and equal international status have been accepted.
“We have been expressing this for four years,” he said.
Despite his firm red lines for negotiations to begin, however, Tatar was keen to stress that in the absence of negotiations, there is fertile ground Cyprus’ two sides to cooperate with one another.
“It is our wish and desire to increase cooperation in various areas, including communication, dialogue, and the opening of crossing points for the development of relations between the two peoples, and therefore to increase this cooperation by adhering to the realities of Cyprus until a final solution is found,” he said.
He did offer something of a ticking off for Doughty, meanwhile, lamenting the international embargoes to which Turkish Cypriots are still subjected and saying Turkish Cypriots “have not found the support they expected from the UK on this issue”.
“For the last 60 years, the UK has not been able to exhibit an approach which fully reflects reality in Cyprus,” he added, saying that the country’s “recent strengthening of relations” with the Republic has only increased the inequality between the island’s two sides.
“The UK’s recent development of its relations with south Cyprus, and especially the relations experienced after the Gaza war, have been approaches which have further increased the imbalance and inequality between the to sides in Cyprus. This attitude that the UK has is deepening the inequalities in Cyprus,” he said.
He added that this situation is “unacceptable”, before saying that the country “remains under the influence of south Cyprus” and lamenting that the country’s stance on the Cyprus problem did not change after it left the European Union in 2020.
“We were hoping for the development of a relationship based on equality with the UK’s departure from Europe,” he said.
He then said a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem is “now inevitable”, and that such a solution will be “fair, permanent, and stable”.
“We made it clear to [Doughty] that the understanding of a solution based on a federation is now behind us and that a two-state solution, which is a solution based on the realities of Cyprus and is the only option for a fair and sustainable solution in Cyprus,” he said after the meeting.
After his meeting with Tatar, Doughty also met opposition political party CTP leader Tufan Erhurman, who is set to be Tatar’s main challenger at this October’s Turkish Cypriot leadership election.
The CTP unveiled a five-point plan for Cyprus problem negotiations in September, which stipulate that all convergences found at Crans Montana in 2017 must be adhered to and that there be no going back on the issues agreed on.
They also stipulate and that a solution be found on the basis of a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality, that the negotiation process be “results-oriented” and that no party leaves the negotiating table, that the negotiating process have “a timetable with a sense of urgency”, and that it be impossible to return to the status quo once negotiations begin.
Doughty did not make any public comments after his meetings with Turkish Cypriots but had said after his meeting with Christodoulides that he had had “very constructive meetings” with the three Greek Cypriot politicians he had met earlier in the day.
He had also met House president and Disy leader Annita Demetriou and Akel leader Stefanos Stefanou.
The enlarged meeting will take place on March 17 and March 18 and will see both Cyprus’ sides as well as representatives of the island’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the UK, and the United Nations, convene to discuss the Cyprus problem.
