Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Friday lambasted President Nikos Christodoulides for “provocative” statements the latter had made about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Cyprus problem.
“I regret and strongly condemn the provocative statements made by [Christodoulides] targeting the visit of [Erdogan] to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Greek Cypriot leadership’s efforts to sow discord in the brotherhood between the TRNC and its motherland, the Republic of Turkey, are futile and will never achieve their goal,” Tatar said.
He was reacting to remarks Christodoulides had made during a televised interview with Ant1, during which he made reference to alleged statements by Erdogan regarding the north’s ongoing “headscarf crisis”.
Erdogan had, according to reports, voiced frustration at Turkish Cypriot “impudence” over ongoing protests against the north’s ruling coalition’s decision to legalise the wearing of hijabs by children at public schools, and teachers’ refusal to apply the law in question, and added, “if you don’t come down hard on this lot, they don’t know their limits”.
Christodoulides had responded to those alleged statements, saying, “Erdogan’s intervention concerns citizens of the Republic of Cyprus, and as the Cypriot Republic, we will not let these unacceptable remarks and any such attempts at imposition on our Turkish Cypriot compatriots stand”.
“Specific messages have already gone to the European Union in relation to Erdogan’s statements,” he said, before adding that Erdogan’s reported words “show, if you like, even earlier, that in 1974, they did not come to save the Turkish Cypriots, as they had talked about a peace operation, they came to serve the interests of Turkey and impose something which serves only Turkey and no one else”.
He added that the situation shows, “to our Turkish Cypriot compatriots, even to those who have any doubts whatsoever regarding the reunification of Cyprus, that their future is in a reunited homeland, a member state of the EU”.
Tatar was incensed by these remarks, saying Christodoulides is “attempting to agitate our internal affairs, damage the deep brotherly ties between the Turkish Cypriot people and motherland Turkey, and gain political advantage from this”.
“It is an unacceptable act of impudence for the Greek Cypriot leader to make statements as if he has the right or authority to represent the Turkish Cypriot people and to have the audacity to talk about the future of our people,” he said.
He added that Christodoulides is “the current representative of the mentality which expelled the Turkish Cypriots from the partnership state by force in 1963 and then brought about all kinds of violence, cruelty, and even systematic genocide attempts against our people for 11 years”.
As such, he said, Christodoulides “has no right to speak about our people”.
“Today, the Turkish Cypriot people are living under their own state thanks to the peace operation, which ended that dark period. The July 20 [1974] peace operation was a legitimate intervention carried out by Turkey in accordance with its rights based on international agreements. It brought peace not only to the Turkish Cypriot people, but also to the Greek Cypriot people,” he said.
“Christodoulides’ real aim is clear: to further aggravate the unjust, unlawful, and inhuman isolation imposed on the Turkish Cypriot people, to virtually block our people’s throats. This approach does not serve reconciliation, but hostility. The Greek Cypriot leadership has for years been systematically trying to prevent the Turkish Cypriots from opening up to the world, from freely reflecting their own will, and from establishing international contacts.”
He then said that while “the Greek Cypriot leadership today speaks of modernity, it has been obstructing the basic human rights of our people for years”.
He made reference to the 2004 Annan plan referendum, to which a majority of Turkish Cypriots voted ‘yes’ and to which a larger majority of Greek Cypriots voted ‘no’, saying that the fact that the Greek Cypriots were able to join the EU a week thereafter “clearly revealed the EU’s political intentions regarding Cyprus and showed that the EU can never be an impartial actor”.
Then, he touched on the issue of the joint declaration signed by five central Asian states and the European Union, ruling out the possibility of any of them recognising the north as an independent country, saying that this constitutes “a new example of the unchanging mentality of the Greek Cypriot side”.
“The fate of the Turkish Cypriot people is not a matter to be left to the whims of the Greek Cypriot leadership. The Greek Cypriot leader does not and will not have the right, nor the authority, to dictate to our people what to think, how to live, and with whom to establish relations,” he said.
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