Leader of the Republican Turkish Party (CTP) Tufan Erhürman criticised President Ersin Tatar and government policy on the Cyprus issue.
During the debate, Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu emphasised the need for “equal international status” and said that sovereign equality does not mean anything without the provisions of equal international status.
Tufan Erhürman (CTP) 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 organisations and political party leaders.
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 ignores the reasons 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”, Ertuğruloğlu 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 emphasised very clearly to the personal envoy that the main goal is the recognition of the state.
“Our message is not to recognise the TRNC in order to start negotiations. It is to recognise the Turkish Cypriot people’s sovereign equality and that they are state owners”, said Ertuğruloğlu.
Stating that he was certain that Holguin clearly understood this message, Ertuğruloğlu said 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.
