Eroglu: North must ‘embrace reality’

Former Turkish Cypriot Leader Dervish Eroglu said on Thursday the north must “embrace the reality” that the Greek Cypriot side never intended to accept the Turkish Cypriot side’s red lines to solve the Cyprus problem.

Speaking to Kibris Postasi, he said “we must all therefore embrace the reality of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus … and find ways to glorify our state and leave some of our problems behind.”

For this reason, he said, “I do not think [United Nations Envoy Maria Angela] Holguin’s efforts will yield positive results.”

He pointed out that she had met with former President Nicos Anastasiades and his own successor Mustafa Akinci, and added, “if she wants to meet me, my door is open. I would be happy to tell her the facts.”

Those facts, he said, are that “the Greek Cypriot leadership and the Greek Cypriot church have never accepted Turkey’s status as a guarantor power.

“They did not and will not accept our active participation in a government, our right to a veto, or a rotating presidency. Neither Turkey nor the TRNC can accept an agreement which does not include these things.”

He then touched on the issue of international embargoes which have been placed on the north, saying they “do not help” in resolving the Cyprus problem.

“This situation is a source of shame for the world and for the Greek Cypriots, who claim to be civilised and to respect human rights,” he said.

He added that there has been no improvement in the situation or relaxation of embargoes despite promises to the contrary, saying “unfortunately, the EU and the world forgot the promises they made to the Turkish Cypriots so they would say yes before the 2004 referendum.

“Unfortunately, they continued to punish us while rewarding the Greek Cypriots.”

He added, “we are Turks, and we know well the realities of the world. They will not be willing to give us our rights. We will have to take them.”

To this end, he said “Greek Cypriots and Greece saw Cyprus as a Greek island yesterday, and they see Cyprus as a Greek island today.

“As [late UN Secretary-general] Kofi Annan stated in his report to the UN Security Council after the 2004 referendum, they do not want to share the island’s administration and wealth with us.”

He also poured scorn on the five permanent UN Security Council members, the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom, saying they “are not acting fairly due to their own concerns and interests, despite the Greek Cypriots’ wrong attitudes. They do not accept our rights.”

He then moved on to reflect on the post-Annan plan negotiation processes, touching first on the period when former Turkish Cypriot Leader Mehmet Ali Talat and late President Demetris Christofias were interlocutors.

“When the Talat-Christofias negotiations started in 2008, there were two leftists, two comrades, two supporters of a federal solution who met for about two years. People said they expected a solution in a short time, but they did not get anywhere,” he said.

Speaking of his own time in office between 2010 and 2015, he said he was the victim of a “major international smear campaign” after he was elected.

“It was claimed that I did not really want a federal solution and that negotiations to that end would collapse within weeks. However, as soon as I was elected, I wrote to the UN Secretary-general that I was committed to the common ground reached up to that date,” he said.

Despite the goodwill he said he had expressed, he said he did not find Christofias to be as committed to finding a solution as he had hoped.

“It was clear at our first meeting that Christofias’ intention was not to reach an agreement but to exit the process by blaming the Turkish Cypriot side,” he said.

He added that the Greek Cypriot side “resorted to various tricks” with the aim of sinking negotiations, but that “my determined attitude prevented these tricks from being successful.”

When Christofias was replaced by Anastasiades in 2013, Eroglu said, Anastasiades was presented as a “pro-consensus leader” as he had voted ‘yes’ to the Annan plan nine years previously.

He said that the reality was that Anastasiades was beholden to agreements he had made with Diko and the Archbishop and that therefore progress could not be made.

He blamed a “litany of excuses” for Anastasiades’ lack of will to enter negotiations, with fresh preconditions being set as time went on.

“He announced he would not come to the table unless Varosha was handed over as a downpayment. When this did not work, he demanded to negotiate directly with Turkey. Then, he insisted on a joint statement by me and him,” he said.

He said he had said yes to the idea of the joint statement, which was issued in February 2014, “to bring him to the table”, but praised the fact that the statement clarified that sovereignty in a future united Cyprus would be sourced from both sides of Cyprus rather than from its central government.

Eroglu was replaced as Turkish Cypriot leader by Mustafa Akinci in 2015. Negotiations for a federal solution between Akinci and Anastasiades ground to a halt two years later and are yet to resume.

Of this, he said “the federal solution process collapsed as the Greek Cypriot side had different intentions. They do not want to share with us the administration and the riches and the blessings of the island of Cyprus.

“The Greek Cypriot side preferred to fight us with the hope of returning to the pre-1974 state of affairs and making Cyprus Greek rather than making an agreement with the Turkish Cypriot people. Everyone must know this.”