Turkey's EU minister Volkan Bozkır on Wednesday said that the European Union must not allow Greek Cyprus to spoil the refugee deal, while he highlighted that it is out of question for Turkey to recognize southern part of the island.
Speaking during a live broadcast, Bozkır said that Turkey has always opposed the idea of including Cyprus negotiations to be a part of Turkey's EU accession process and has always promoted finding a solution to the conflict.
"They can now talk about finding a solution to the Cyprus issue thanks to our determined stance in the past decade," Bozkır said, and underscored that Turkey will not recognize the southern part of the island and that it is up to Europe to convince Greek Cyprus administration to resolve the problem.
On Tuesday, Greek Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades said that they would block Turkey's EU accession if it does not recognize their administration.
Bozkır added that failure to convince Greek Cypriot administration would result in collapse of the refugee deal between Turkey and the EU, which he said would directly pose a threat to the union as a whole.
Ankara wants its citizens to have visa-free access to the EU's Schengen zone by June and to open new chapters in its long-stalled EU accession process in return for assistance in stemming the human tide of refugees through Europe in one of the continent's worst humanitarian crises since World War II.
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