President Ersin Tatar responded to the provocative statements of Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides, who targeted the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
He said that the Greek Cypriot leadership’s effort to create discord between the TRNC and Türkiye was in vain and will never succeed.
Tatar also noted that Christodoulides was using President Erdoğan’s visit to provoke internal issues, damage the deep brotherhood ties between the Turkish Cypriot people and Türkiye, and try to gain political benefits.
Tatar criticized the Greek Cypriot leader’s statements as an unacceptable presumption, as if he had the right or authority to represent the Turkish Cypriot people or speak about their future.
Pointing out that the representative of the mindset that forcibly expelled Turkish Cypriots from the partnership state in 1963, subjected them to violence, atrocities, and even attempted systematic genocide for 11 years, had no right to speak about the Turkish Cypriot people, he reminded that the Turkish Cypriot people now live under their own state, thanks to the Peace Operation of 20 July, which ended this dark period.
Tatar stressed that the 20 July Peace Operation was a legitimate intervention based on Türkiye’s international rights and that it brought peace not only to the Turkish Cypriot people but also to the Greek Cypriots, and thus to the entire island.
Describing the 20 July Peace Operation as a historic turning point that guaranteed the existence and security of the Turkish Cypriot people, the President also made it clear that the real aim of the Greek Cypriot leader Christodoulides was to intensify the unfair, illegal, and inhuman isolation imposed on the Turkish Cypriot people, almost suffocating them.
“This approach serves not reconciliation, but enmity,” Tatar stressed, stating that the Greek Cypriot leadership had been systematically working to prevent the Turkish Cypriot people from opening up to the world, expressing their will freely, and establishing international contacts.
He further added that in 2004, when the Turkish Cypriot people extended their hand for a solution, they overwhelmingly supported the Annan Plan, while the Greek Cypriot side, which voted ‘no,’ was rewarded by being unilaterally admitted to the European Union.
Tatar added that this revealed the European Union’s political intentions regarding Cyprus and demonstrated that the EU could never be a neutral actor.
He also noted that recent attempts by the Greek Cypriot side to undermine the TRNC’s relations with the Turkic world were a new example of their unchanged mentality.
President Tatar concluded by reiterating that the Turkish Cypriot people will not bow to impositions and will continue to define their own path, saying, “In this direction, our vision for a two-state solution, based on our sovereign equality and international status, will never be abandoned.”
Stressing that the fate of the Turkish Cypriot people was not something that will be left to the whims of the Greek Cypriot leadership, he reminded that the Greek Cypriot leader had no right or authority to dictate to the Turkish Cypriot people what they should think, how they should live, or with whom they should associate.
“With the new vision I have presented to confirm our sovereign equality and equal international status, I will continue to steadfastly defend the honorable existence, sovereignty, and statehood of our people” President Tatar concluded.