A Turkish government office has corroborated Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s claims that the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) fabricated a quote after a recent interview.

Turkish Presidency’s Communications directorate’s latest “disinformation bulletin”, which was produced by the directorate’s centre for the fight against disinformation, listed the quote among recent examples of “disinformation”.

CNA had reported Tatar said “yes, [the effort for a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem] has not had the desired feedback from the international community” during an interview in July.

Tatar disputed the quote, releasing a transcript of the interview and accusing CNA of “twisting the truth”. According to the transcript, he instead said “we voiced a realistic policy because yes, we may have problems in the international community”.

The Turkish Presidency’s communications directorate corroborated Tatar’s claim, saying “it has been determined that Tatar did not use such a statement in the transcript of the audio recordings taken during the interview”.