Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied that Cyprus is a country recognized by the international community and claimed there was “no country named Cyprus.” He slammed the EU for accepting Cyprus in the bloc and spoke of “political motivation.”
Comments by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday that “there is no country named Cyprus” prompted a strong response from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.
“The Turkish Prime Minister’s disputing the very existence of the Republic of Cyprus should finally awaken the international community as to Turkey’s true intentions regarding the Cyprus issue. Any further comment on this is superfluous,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Konstantinos Koutras said in an official statement on Monday.
Speaking to Turkish-Cypriot daily Kibris on the conclusions of a meeting in Poland addressing Turkey’s relations with the European Union, Erdogan said that the EU’s decision to include Cyprus in the bloc along with the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia and Malta in 2004, was politically motivated.
“They did not admit them because they were in harmony with the EU laws. They admitted them in a political decision. I will give you an example of this. One of them is south Cyprus. Pay attention! They did not admit it as south Cyprus. They admitted it as Cyprus. There is no country named Cyprus. There is the local administration of south Cyprus,” Erdogan is quoted as saying.
Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines since the Turkish occupation of the north of the island in 1974. The success of reunification talks are seen as key to Turkey’s bid to join the EU.
It’s high time for the European Union to finally clear its relations with Turkey that seems to reject the guidelines of the international community. It’s not a secret that Erdogan would prefer a pure economic relation with the EU than also a political one.
Time to put things into the right track and clean all misunderstanding and misinterpretations and games.
I don’t understand your point. If you’ve ever been to Cyprus it becomes very obvious that it is two countries in reality and the northern state is becoming more and more accepted in practice around the world.
I also think that the Annan plan was a fairly good compromise. Since the greek cypriots voted no, I don’t understand why its Turkeys responsibility to solve the conflict.
Unfortunately, Andreas, the issue is not as simple as it looks like.
As the occupation and division of the island is illegal there can be no diplomatic recognition by the international community. Furthermore the population in the north is mostly migrants from Turkey and not the native population.
Had Annan indeed made a fairly good compromise, there would be no problem today. But Annan plan was most likely to end in disaster, without provisions what will happen if the new Cyprus wouldn’t work (just to mention one crucial point). like with the euro zone lol
I believe at that time. the political deal was ‘Cyprus in EU, Turkey accepts Annan plan’. it was impossible to work.
Of course there can be diplomatic recognition of an area like northern cyprus. Give it a couple of decades and it will be there.
I can’t really see the problem with the Annan plan, and my conclusion is rather that the Greek Cypriots prefer a divided island in front of a joined country with 20-30% muslims / turkish speakers.
of course there could be a diplomatic recognition once Turkey withdraws its army. I had read 75% of Annan plan and I can tell you that it had not chances to work. Academic solutions are not always applicable in real life.
I don’t understand your point. If you’ve ever been to Cyprus it becomes very obvious that it is two countries in reality and the northern state is becoming more and more accepted in practice around the world.
I also think that the Annan plan was a fairly good compromise. Since the greek cypriots voted no, I don’t understand why its Turkeys responsibility to solve the conflict.
So called cyprus belong to the turks…turks are native populationin cyprus….
I’m afraid history will disappoint you, my friend. the island is much olden than the 9th century when the Turks decided to move towards the West.
GCs were over 80% of the population in the last British run census.
Forget the 9th century. The Turks were only 18.2 % of the popuation in 1960.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Cyprus#Historical_population
Does the US recognize Northern Cyprus? Or Russia, or China? That would be my first clue to the future of this island.