The north’s ‘foreign minister’ Tahsin Ertugruloglu on Wednesday evening said the Greek Cypriots are “using the European Union as a weapon”.

He was speaking to the north’s public broadcaster BRT about the signing of a joint declaration by five central Asian states and the European Union which ruled out the prospect of any of them recognising the north as an independent country, and said the EU was being used as a weapon “despite the lofty values it claims to represent”.

He added that the EU “has a perception which is incompatible with the realities of the island of Cyprus”, before later going on to say that “the Greek Cypriot side is in favour of a solution which is compatible with EU norms, and this means freedom of movement and free settlement”.

“We are a people who choose to stand tall against this,” he added.

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He was keen to stress that the joint declaration’s signing was not to be taken as a reason to find fault in his and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s policy of pursuing a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem, however.

“We should not see this as a reason to criticise our policy,” he said, adding that it is “neither a disaster for the TRNC nor a victory for southern Cyprus”.

Four of the states which signed the joint declaration with the EU, Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, have majority Turkic populations, and are members of the Organisation of Turkic States (OTS). The declaration said all five countries “reaffirmed our strong commitment” to United Nations security council resolutions 541 and 550.

Resolution 541 said the security council “deplores the declaration of the Turkish Cypriot authorities of the purported secession of part of the Republic of Cyprus” while calling on UN member states not to recognise the north.

Resolution 550 said it “reiterates the call upon all states not to recognise the purported state of the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’, set up by secessionist acts, and calls upon them not to facilitate or in any way assist the aforesaid secessionist entity”.

The signing of the joint declaration saw Turkey’s ruling AK Party face fierce criticism from high-profile opposition figures, including Ankara mayor Mansur Yavas, opposition party the CHP’s presidential candidate in 2018 Muharrem Ince, and Ayyuce Turkes Tas of the Iyi Party, whose father, former Turkish deputy prime minister Alparslan Turkes, was himself a Cypriot.

On Tuesday, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar had called on central Asian Turkic states to “be more careful”, amid a wave of anger in Turkey in the wake of the joint declaration’s signing.

He had added that it was possible that the signatories had “overlooked” the rticles of the joint declaration which precluded recognition of the north, and added, “do they know where the outcome of these articles will lead and what consequences they will have, and for whom?”