The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) on Wednesday urged the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to show active support for the country instead of just offering supportive words.
TRNC Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu in his speech during the 48th OIC foreign ministers’ meeting in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad reiterated that Turkish Cypriots are deprived of human rights and have faced unfair isolation in very aspect of their lives since 1963.
Praising the OIC’s previous decisions on the TRNC last year, he said that more than words are needed right now.
He described Cyprus as an island on which two separate, sovereign states are located, neither of which has the right to represent itself on its own. Ertuğruloğlu underlined that all approaches toward the Cyprus issue have to be based on this reality.
The island of Cyprus has been mired in a decadeslong struggle between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the U.N. to achieve a comprehensive settlement. The island has been divided since 1964 when ethnic attacks forced the Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety. In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aiming at Greece's annexation led to Turkey's military intervention as a guarantor power. The TRNC was founded in 1983 and currently, Turkey is the only country that officially recognizes it as a separate and independent state.
The island 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 United Kingdom.
While Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration support a federation on Cyprus, Turkey and the TRNC insist on a two-state solution reflecting the realities on the island.
