President Ersin Tatar on Tuesday condemned the British High Commissioner to South Cyprus Irfan Siddiq.

Tatar was speaking to Anadolu News Agency about an earlier interview Siddiq had given to a Turkish Cypriot newspaper

which was published on Monday.

He said that the British High Commissioner did not have the right to interfere in the island’s internal matters.

“We have the support of the Turkish nation behind us,” Tatar said.

Referring to Irfan Siddiq’s earlier remarks in an interview with a Turkish Cypriot daily in which he said sovereign equality and equal international status could not be given to the north, Tatar said that Siddiq, who claimed the TRNC will never be recognized, was in “no position to give advice or counsel to the Turkish Cypriots and the leadership of the TRNC.”

He pointed out that Siddiq’s statements aimed to tilt the balance in favour of the UK in the Eastern Mediterranean.

“There will be no turning back on the federation issue, and the TRNC will continue to exist as a Turkish state in the Blue Homeland of the Eastern Mediterranean forever, and no one can prevent this,” he said, adding that the prerequisites for commencing negotiations with South Cyprus are sovereign equality and equal international status.