The Cyprus issue was on the agenda of parliament on Monday leading to heated discussions between the main opposition and the government.

The leader of the Republican Turkish Party (CTP) Tufan Erhürman criticized the policy carried out on the Cyprus issue and President Ersin Tatar.

Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, on the other hand, laid emphasis on “equal international status” and said that sovereign equality does not mean anything without the provisions of equal international status.

The leader of the Republican Turkish Party (CTP) Tufan Erhürman referred to the recent visit of the UN Secretary General’s personal envoy to Cyprus Maria Angela Holguin who met with the leaders on the island as well as civil society organizations and political party leaders.

Erhürman claimed that President Ersin Tatar’s statements during her visit to Cyprus were not understandable and argued that the concepts of sovereign equality and equal sovereignty were used inconsistently in his statements.

Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu addressed the CTP leader’s concerns by saying that sovereign equality does not make sense without equal international status and noted that they will never allow an approach that forgets why negotiations have failed for 60 years to continue.

“According to us, there is no longer an option called federal partnership. That book is closed. We negotiated that for 60 years to no avail. It is also very clear why this process has not been successful. We also explained these to the personal envoy,” he said.

“As long as the Greek Cypriot side is treated as a state and we are treated as a community of the Greek Cypriot side, there is no possibility for this to work,” Ertuğruloğlu said, adding that they emphasized very clearly to the personal envoy that the main goal is the recognition of the state.

“Our message is not to recognize the TRNC in order to start negotiations. It is to recognize the Turkish Cypriot people’s sovereign equality and that they are state owners,” said Ertuğruloğlu.

Explaining that he was certain that Holguin understood clearly, Ertuğruloğlu stated that it is out of the question to say that there is common ground as long as the mistake made by the international community for years is not resolved and as long as the Greek Cypriots are treated as a state and the Turkish Cypriots as their community.