After decades of failure by the international community to address the Cyprus issue, both Turkish and Greek Cypriots need to go their own ways with their respective states, says the foreign minister of the TRNC in an exclusive interview with TRT World
The Cyprus issue is a long-running political conflict between Turkish and Greek Cypriots, two different ethnic and religious communities residing on the strategic Eastern Mediterranean island.
The 1960s was a critical decade for the conflict as political tensions between the two sides had reached a tipping point. Despite the Greek Aggression from 1960 to 1974, Turkish Cypriots did their best to make the bi-communal union work. In 1974, Greece engineered a military coup through Greek Cypriots in a naked attempt to disenfranchise Turkish Cypriots, but Türkiye thwarted those plans by intervening militarily.
Even after 1974, both Türkiye and Turkish Cypriots continued to negotiate with Greece and Greek Cypriots to reestablish a political partnership. But the ongoing failure of the international community to address the Cyprus issue led Turkish Cypriots in the north to declare their own state, TRNC, in 1983, recognised only by Ankara. Türkiye and Turkish Cypriots see Greek Cypriot-controlled territory in the south as the Greek Cypriot Administration .
“Otherwise, if the international community is going to try to force us into a so-called ‘settlement’ or ‘federation’ or whatever they are going to call it, a joint state between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, it's a futile attempt. It's not going to work. It's been tried and it's failed,” he adds.
Since 1974, however, Greek Cypriots have pretended to have sovereignty over the whole island while Turkish Cypriots rule Northern Cyprus. Ertugruloglu believes that in contrast to the 1960 international agreement, the international community recognises Greek Cypriots as having a legal sovereign right to rule over the entire island — a critical violation of the founding document of the island state.
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