North’s ‘foreign ministry’ lambasts ‘baseless accusations’ in EU’s Turkey report

The Turkish Cypriot ‘foreign ministry’ on Thursday expressed disgust with the European Parliament’s latest annual report on Turkey, which was accepted by the parliament by a majority vote on Wednesday. It said that the report’s references to Cyprus “once again reveal the European Union’s biased and detached from reality approach to the Cyprus issue”. “We completely reject the baseless accusations made against our motherland, Turkey, and the assessments which disregard the Turkish Cypriot people’s inherent rights and sovereign will, and the existing realities on the island,” it said. It lambasted the report’s reference to the Turkish Cypriot people as a “legitimate community of the island” and its call on Turkey to allow the Turkish Cypriots the “space to act”, saying that this language “clearly ignores the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which was established by our people’s democratic will”. Related Articles • Five Cypriot MEPs abstain, Fidias rejects EU parliament’s Turkey report • ‘This Turkey has no place in the European family’ – Cypriot MEPs react to report • Two Cypriot MEPs to abstain from European Parliament vote on Turkey report “The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is a sovereign and independent state which maintains its existence with its institutions, democratic structure, and the free will of its people,” it added. On this matter, it said that the European Parliament’s “continued insistence on imposing a federation-based agreement as the only option” for a solution to the Cyprus problem is “incompatible with the political and factual realities on the island”. “Reintroducing a negotiation model which has been exhausted due to the Greek Cypriot side’s intransigence is far from contributing to the search from an agreement. A lasting and just agreement will only be possible with the acceptance of the Turkish Cypriot people’s sovereign equality and equal international status,” it said. It went on to criticise “the unfounded claims regarding Strovilia, Pyla, and Varosha”, and “the biased and untrue assessments concerning immovable property, missing persons, cultural heritage issues, buffer zone violations, and Turkey’s legitimate presence in Cyprus”. These references, it said, are “entirely biased and null and void from our perspective”, with the report being largely critical of the Turkish military’s actions in Cyprus’ buffer zone, deploring what it described as a lack of maintenance of churches in northern Cyprus, and also criticising the development of property owned by Greek Cypriots before 1974. Additionally, the ‘ministry’ rejected the report’s request for a new European Union envoy for the Cyprus problem to be appointed, declaring such an appointment to be “unwarranted”. “It is far from credible for the European Union, which has ignored the Turkish Cypriot people’s fundamental rights for years, to claim that it can contribute to an agreement as a ‘neutral’ actor. EU intervention will never be accepted,” it said. It added that “the European Union’s failure to fulfil its 2004 commitments to lift the isolation imposed on the Turkish Cypriot people … [has] once again revealed the union’s biased position on the Cyprus issue”. This, it said, has been exhibited by “its rewarding of the Greek Cypriot side’s intransigent stance, and even its attempts to obstruct the relations which the TRNC has developed within the Organisation of Turkic States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation”. “We invite the institutions of the European Union to adopt a constructive and balanced approach which is based on the existing realities on the island and respects the inherent rights, sovereign equality, and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot people, instead of unilateral political approaches favouring the Greek Cypriot administration,” it said. It added that “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, in full harmony and solidarity with its motherland, Turkey, will continue to protect the sovereignty, security, and well-being of its people, and will resolutely continue its just fight for the recognition of its sovereign equality and equal international status by the international community”.