Turkey slams ‘biased’ declaration of EU's Med9 countries

A declaration issued by a group of southern European Union states was slammed as "one-sided" and divorced from reality, Turkey said Saturday.

The treatment of issues of the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus and refugees in the Med9 joint declaration are, like last year’s, biased and short-sighted, said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç in a written statement.

Bilgiç urged the EU countries that signed the declaration to abandon their one-sided attitude, in which they blindly followed Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration under the guise of solidarity.

The Med9 summit on Friday brought together the EU countries bordering the Mediterranean, namely the leaders from Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia and the Greek Cypriot administration as well as the Portuguese foreign minister and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The participants also adopted a joint declaration on issues of political and humanitarian significance, referring to peace, security and stability in the Mediterranean as a strategic priority for the EU.

Cyprus has been mired in a decadeslong dispute between Greek 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 Turkey's military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (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 Turkey, Greece and the U.K.

The Greek Cypriot administration entered the EU in 2004, the same year Greek Cypriots thwarted the U.N.'s Annan plan to end the longstanding dispute.