No acceptable agreement can be reached on the Cyprus issue as long as the international community does not change its stance, Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the 26th meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Council of Ministers in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, of which the TRNC is an observer country, Ertuğruloğlu shared the Turkish side’s new vision of the new dynamics on the island and the region.
"Whether the Greek Cypriot side accepts it or not, there is no turning back from this new path we have taken. Greek Cypriots and the international community have to accept the undeniable truth of Cyprus, which is that there are two separate sovereign states, two separate democracies, two separate people," he underlined.
"Unless the international community's approach to the Cyprus issue changes, there will be no mutually acceptable agreement. More than 50 years were lost in the Cyprus negotiations. Now is the time to take a step forward with a new vision," Ertuğruloğlu added.
The island has been mired in a decadeslong dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the U.N. to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece's annexation led to Türkiye's military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the TRNC was founded in 1983.
It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom.
The Greek Cypriot administration entered the European Union in 2004, the same year Greek Cypriots thwarted the U.N. Annan Plan to end the longstanding dispute.
Today, Turkish Cyprus supports a solution based on the equal sovereignty of the two states on the island. On the other hand, the Greek side wants a federal solution based on the hegemony of the Greeks.
‘More effective ECO’
On the other side, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, speaking at the same ECO meeting, said that Türkiye will continue to do its part to make the organization "more effective."
Çavuşoğlu said that with a strong will, the organization's members will strengthen it in the face of the current challenging global environment.
The ECO is a political and economic intergovernmental organization founded by Türkiye, Pakistan and Iran in 1985 to serve as a platform to discuss and improve development and promote trade and investment opportunities. It has seven other members: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
"Today, the global economy faces major challenges. Food and energy prices are constantly rising. There are disruptions and changes in global supply chains. Global economic growth has not fully recovered. To overcome these challenges, we should accelerate our economic cooperation," Çavuşoğlu said.
He added that member states should enhance transportation and logistics networks and make full use of instruments to enhance regional trade such as the Economic Cooperation Organization Trade Agreement (ECOTA).
"We should continue our efforts in 2023 to turn the ECO into a more effective and visible organization," he stressed.
Turning to Turkish Cyprus, Çavuşoğlu said: "It is, in fact, the most active observer in its contributions to our joint work. For the past 11 years, our Turkish Cypriot brothers participated and spoke at all high-level ECO meetings.