Turkish Cyprus ready to negotiate with Greek Cypriots

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) is ready to participate in potential negotiations to establish cooperation with the south, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

The statement highlighted that the Greek Cypriot administration in the south has disrupted all previous attempts to find a solution in order to preserve the status quo following its destruction of the 1960 unity government through a coup.

“The European Union countries’ insistence on a federal solution, which does not conform with today’s conditions, means an open support to the preservation of the status quo, which provides a comfort zone for the Greek Cypriot side,” the statement read, adding that Turkish Cyprus has been voicing the need for a two-state solution at the unofficial United Nations-led talks.

Underlining that Turkish Cyprus has presented a number of constructive suggestions based on a win-win understanding in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Foreign Ministry said these suggestions are still on the table for the Greek Cypriots to consider.

The Turkish Cyprus side also noted that the closed city of Varosha (Maraş) belongs to Turkish Cypriots and its reopening will follow an international legal framework.

In March, the EU expressed that the bloc is ready to provide “whatever assistance” it can to both Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders as well as the U.N., arguing that it needs to get involved in the U.N.-led talks on Cyprus as it sees it as an "EU problem."

“The sooner the EU becomes fully involved in the renewed settlement talks, the better,” the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on his blog in the wake of his visit to the island of Cyprus, when he met with both Ersin Tatar, president of the TRNC, and Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot administration leader.

Turkish leaders have expressed skepticism over EU involvement in the Cyprus issue, saying that the bloc has shown itself to be a biased actor when it comes to the issue.

Cyprus has been mired in a decadeslong struggle between the Greek and Turkish 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 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. The TRNC was founded in 1983.

The Greek Cypriot administration, backed by Greece, became a member of the EU in 2004, despite most Greek Cypriots rejecting a U.N. settlement plan in a referendum that year, which had envisaged a reunited Cyprus joining the EU.