President Ersin Tatar said on Thursday that the formula for a just, equal and sustainable reconciliation for the Turkish Cypriot people was through cooperation of two states on the basis of sovereign equality and equal international status.
Tatar also stressed the fact that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) had been unanimously admitted to the Organisation of Turkic States as an observer member with its constitutional name and was a great source of satisfaction and pride for the Turkish Cypriot people.
Speaking in an interview with Nazgül Kenzhetay from TVNET, Albayrak Media Group, President Ersin Tatar said that the TRNC was the steadfast guardian and representative of Turkic rights and interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.
“We continue our struggle to carry forward our state, which we established in 1983 through great struggles, using our right to determine our own destiny, despite all the difficulties,” he said.
Reminding that as soon as he took office as President, he put forward a new vision in the international arena with the full support of motherland Türkiye, Tatar said that this vision was built on the current realities on the island.
Stating that the sovereign equality and equal international status were the inherent rights of the Turkish Cypriot people, the President said, “The Turkish Cypriot people are as sovereign as the Greek Cypriot people with whom we share the island and live side by side within the borders of our own states.”
President Tatar also reminded that the formula and basis of a just, equal and sustainable reconciliation for the Turkish Cypriot people was the cooperation of the two states on the basis of sovereign equality and equal international status.
He said that the call made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during his speech at 77th General Assembly of the UN, for the official recognition of the TRNC and the lifting of the inhumane isolation imposed on the Turkish Cypriot people was of historical importance.
“As a reflection of this, at the 9th Organization of Turkic States Leaders’ Summit held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on November 11, 2022, the TRNC was unanimously accepted as an observer member with its constitutional name. The Turkish Cypriot people are proud to be recognised as an integral part of the Turkic world,” Tatar noted.
He also expressed the view that the TRNC’s membership had further strengthened the organization.