Turkish Cypriot Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu said Wednesday that Türkiye's military presence on the island and its guarantor status remain a "red line" for the Turkish Cypriot people, arguing they are essential for security, regional stability and the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean.
In a written statement carried by the Turkish New Agency-Cyprus (TAK), Ertuğruloğlu rejected renewed calls for a federal settlement to the decades-old Cyprus dispute, saying past negotiations had repeatedly demonstrated that such efforts were no longer viable.
"The reality on the island is the existence of two sovereign states living side by side," he said, arguing that attempts to hold the Turkish Cypriot community responsible for the lack of a settlement through international isolation were unjustified.
Ertuğruloğlu said Türkiye's "effective and de facto guarantee" and the continued presence of Turkish troops on the island were indispensable to the security of Turkish Cypriots. He also described Türkiye's role as the strongest guarantee of the strategic balance between Türkiye and Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean and of broader regional stability.
The minister criticized Greek Cypriot positions during previous rounds of U.N.-backed peace negotiations, saying their insistence on governing the island alone, treating Turkish Cypriots as a minority and demanding "zero troops, zero guarantees" had rendered federation-based solutions obsolete.
He referred to the 2004 U.N.-backed Annan Plan and the 2017 talks in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, as examples of failed efforts that demonstrated the limits of a federal model.
Ertuğruloğlu said the future of Turkish Cypriots lay in strengthening the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in close cooperation with Türkiye rather than returning to what he described as exhausted negotiation frameworks.
He also criticized attempts to link progress in Türkiye's relations with the European Union to developments in the Cyprus issue, accusing the bloc of consistently siding with the Greek Cypriot administration.
"How can the European Union, which has always taken the side of the Greek Cypriots, be expected to act fairly toward the Turkish Cypriot people?" he said.
Recalling the 2004 referendum on the Annan Plan, Ertuğruloğlu said Turkish Cypriots had learned from what he described as the EU's failure to fulfill expectations following their support for the plan.
Türkiye has increasingly advocated a two-state solution for Cyprus in recent years, arguing that any lasting settlement must be based on the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot people.