The European Union should stay out of talks on the Cyprus problem as long as it recognizes only the Greek Cypriot government, the foreign minister of the northern breakaway republic said.
Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu also told POLITICO in an interview that a two-state solution — or permanent split — was the only way forward for the divided Mediterranean island, a hardline position bound to further complicate efforts to resolve the decades-long dispute.
His remarks echo those of Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, who narrowly beat reunification advocate Mustafa Akinci in presidential elections in October, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Both have stepped up their calls for the creation of two separate sovereign states on the island over the past year.
No nation other than Turkey recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the breakaway entity created following Ankara’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus. The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, is accepted internationally as the sole sovereign power over the entire island.
The two sides — along with guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom — are now gearing up for fresh talks under the auspices of the United Nations, to be held in Geneva in late April, the first such gathering since negotiations collapsed in 2017.
The situation in the Eastern Mediterranean has taken a sharp turn for the worse in the past four years, however. Greece, Cyprus and Turkey are mired in a tense dispute over maritime boundaries and natural resources; relations between the two sides worsened last year over the Turkish Cypriots’ unilateral reopening of a symbolic ghost town; and the election of anti-reunification candidate Tatar has also dampened prospects for a one-state federal solution, as backed by the U.N. and the EU.
The EU, for its part, has said it wants to be part of the U.N. discussions, and relations with Turkey are on the agenda for this week’s European Council summit. Earlier this month, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, stressed that “the sooner the EU becomes fully involved in the renewed settlement talks, the better.”
Brussels did participate in the last round of talks back in 2017. But Ertuğruloğlu insisted that his government can’t let that happen this time — because the EU recognizes only the Republic of Cyprus.
“The EU has no place at the table,” he added. “Not now and, as long as they do not correct their mistake [of not formally recognizing the Turkish Cypriot government as well], not even later.”
The EU “does not have a positive role to play in the process, it is not a neutral bystander,” he continued. “It is an organization that has chosen to be on the part of the Greek Cypriots against the Turkish Cypriots. Besides, there are two members of the EU at the table, Greek Cypriots and Greece.”
He added that “for negotiations to have any chance of success, they must be conducted between equals. If one side is the state and the other side is the community, then you are not talking about a negotiating process that has any chance of success.”
His government, Ertuğruloğlu said, is proposing a Cyprus solution not dissimilar from the EU model: a “partnership of sovereign equal states,” but with loose ties like in a “confederation” rather than the “federation” envisaged by the international community.
“Two separate sovereign equal states will decide how they will shape the future. Either they will exist on the same island as two states — each one going its own way — or they will be two separate states cooperating on certain fields for mutual benefit, or down the line in future years these two separate states may decide to enter a confederation,” he said.
Ertuğruloğlu urged the U.N. to quickly establish whether the two sides can find common ground. If there is no chance of a resolution, he warned, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus would campaign for recognition from other states.