The Foreign Ministry condemned recent claims against a top ministry official who took part in the Cyprus talks in 2017, for being "unfounded" and "completely untrue."
"Some sources, referring to a book published abroad, made unfounded allegations against Feridun Sinirlioğlu, the former undersecretary of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, who met with the Greek Cypriot negotiator within the framework of the simultaneous visits of Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot negotiators to Athens and Ankara," ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgiç said on Twitter.
"These allegations of a compromising attitude to reach a consensus within the framework of these mutual visits are completely untrue," he said. "The statements of Sinirlioğlu, then Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on our national issues, especially Cyprus, are recorded in state documents and open sources."
"These baseless allegations, which are part of the efforts of the Greek Cypriot side to shed their responsibility with a sense of guilt, should not be credited," he added.
Bilgiç said that Türkiye's Cyprus policy is clear and that this policy is well known by all parties.
Cyprus 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 of the island led to Türkiye'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.
The Greek Cypriot administration entered the European Union in 2004, the same year that Greek Cypriots thwarted a U.N. plan to end the longstanding dispute.
