Israel's ongoing genocide in Palestinian lands is a source of disgrace for humanity, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as they held a meeting in New York on Tuesday.
The closed-door meeting took place at U.N. headquarters, shortly after Erdoğan's historic speech at the 79th session of the U.N. General Assembly.
Erdoğan told Guterres that the international community must unify its voices to stop Israel's massacres, the Presidential Communications Directorate said Tuesday.
He also said Türkiye was closely following the genocide case against Israel, as he warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is becoming worse as winter approaches and that more efforts must be made to deliver more humanitarian and medical supplies to the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
The president also reiterated Ankara's support for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), saying that they demand equal representation and sovereignty rights. He continued by saying that solution options besides a federation can be discussed at a meeting under the auspices of the United Nations with the participation of all sides.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Türkiye, as a guarantor power, prompted by a coup aimed at Greece's annexation of the Island, launched a military intervention dubbed the Cyprus Peace Operation to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the TRNC was founded on Nov. 15, 1983.
Since then, the violence has stopped, but tensions continue, including over who holds sway on the island's exclusive offshore economic zone, over 40% of which was claimed by Türkiye following recent natural gas discoveries.
Türkiye doesn't recognize the Greek Cypriot administration as a state and still keeps some 35,000 troops in the TRNC.
The island has recently seen an on-and-off peace process, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom.
The Greek Cypriot administration was admitted to the European Union in 2004, the same year they thwarted a U.N. plan to end the longstanding dispute, but only the Greek Cypriot south enjoys its full benefits.
