Turkey ‘will have to bend its own intransigence’ on Cyprus, Letymbiotis says

Turkey will be required to exhibit flexibility in its position regarding the Cyprus problem, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Wednesday, as he faced questions over the day’s Nato summit, which was taking place in Ankara. He was first asked about the planned meetings of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with European Council president Antonio Costa and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen which is set to take place on the summit’s sidelines, and said, “they are certainly meetings which have great importance, especially with regard to the Cyprus issue”. “This is because it has now been proven, it has now been understood by everyone, that the aspect of relations between Europe and Turkey, the parameter of relations between the European Union and Turkey, is that aspect which will act as a catalyst, which can act as a catalyst in the efforts we are making to restart negotiations,” he said. “It is known what Turkey is seeking and what it is demanding in relation to progress in relations between the European Union and Turkey” and that this will “certainly be the subject” of Erdogan’s meeting with von der Leyen, he added. “However, it has been recorded and prepared in a very specific way how this progress can be achieved, and this progress has at its core Turkey’s Cyprus-related obligations.” To this end, he said that “the progress of relations between Europe and Turkey is fully interconnected with the progress on the Cyprus issue”. He said that President Nikos Christodoulides had on Tuesday held a telephone conversation with von der Leyen “precisely in view of today’s meeting”, and that in light of this, “arrangements are being made” for Christodoulides and von der Leyen to meet in person next week. This meeting, he said, will be held “precisely so as to make an overall assessment of today’s meeting, but also of all the contacts which are taking place during this period”. The meetings to which he was referring are a flurry of contacts taking place with a view to convening an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, involving the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the United Nations. “I do not know whether today’s meetings will be the ones which will demonstrate whether and when the informal enlarged meeting will take place,” he said. However, he added, “what I do know … is that the United Nations Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres], his personal envoy [Maria Angela Holguin], we, the European Union, and, of course, Greece, have stated it, and our position is formulated, and we have publicly declared that we are ready for it to be convened even tomorrow”. This meeting, he added, must be “aimed at announcing the resumption of negotiations” to bring about a solution to the Cyprus problem. Asked whether Costa and von der Leyen would raise the issue of Cyprus in their meetings with Erdogan, he said that “it is a necessary condition”, and that “we are not the only ones saying it, but the European Council’s conclusions record it”. He was also keen to point out that participation in the EU’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe (Safe) defence programme, through which Cyprus last month took receipt of the first disbursement of what will eventually total almost €1.2bn in funds, requires unanimity among the EU’s 27 member states. “Therefore, de facto, the Cyprus issue will be one of the aspects which will concern and will be one of the aspects which will concern and will be at the core of this discussion, precisely because progress on the Cyprus issue is necessary for there to be progress in relations between Europe and Turkey as well,” he said. He was then asked about the prospect of Turkey acquiring F-35 fighter jets from the United States, with US President Donald Trump seemingly in favour of the idea, despite Congress having passed a law prohibiting the sale of F-35s to Turkey so long as it retains its stock of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles. In response, he said that the day’s Nato summit and the meetings taking place “concern the entire international community, especially us, if we take into account that we are dealing with occupying Turkey”. “Let us not get ahead of ourselves. What was mentioned yesterday, which is certainly worth noting, is that President Trump said he would examine it,” he said. He added that the US’ previous opposition to the sale of F-35s to Turkey was built on “the role which Turkey plays in our region, the role it has played in the past, but also in the present phase, regarding Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and a series of other geopolitical developments and conflicts”. “Turkey demands and seeks to have an upgraded role in the region. A Turkey, however, which at the same time is de facto following a policy of double standards and not only in terms of the blatant violation of human rights and international law in our country, but also in the wider region,” he said. “This has been noted and raised by several states in recent years, precisely in terms of the role which Turkey wishes to play.”