Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis on Thursday called on Turkey to “look in the mirror” over the lack of progress in its relations with the European Union, after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had a day earlier said those relations were being “held hostage by one country”.

“The Turkish minister refers to the EU and separates the Republic of Cyprus from the EU. Cyprus is Europe, Europe is Cyprus, and this has been proven by the experience of recent days,” he said, in reference to last week’s informal European Council summit in Nicosia.

He added that President Nikos Christodoulides “has said it clearly and repeatedly [that] we want progress in relations between Europe and Turkey”, but that “this progress must go through Turkey’s Cyprus-related obligations – towards an EU member state of which Turkey has illegally occupied the territory for 52 years”.

“So, what we, the Republic of Cyprus, and EU member state, is doing, everything we have been doing recently with greater intensity, is to raise the level of our presence as an EU member state, as a state in the region which proves in practice its usefulness and credibility,” he said.

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To this end, he said that “the one who must reflect on its responsibilities is Turkey”, and that “if Turkey wants to look for the reasons why it does not see progress in relations with the EU, it must look in the mirror”.

Fidan had made the comments during a joint press conference with his Austrian counterpart Beate Meinl-Reisinger in Vienna, calling for the existing customs union agreement between the EU and Turkey to be upgraded.

At present, Turkey has a customs union agreement with the EU, but as Turkey is not a full EU member, it does not enjoy the full benefits of the union. As such, when the EU signs a trade deal with a third country, imports to Turkey from that third country can no longer be tariffed, but that third country can continue to place tariffs on Turkish exports.

“Unfortunately, there are some inherent rule-based dilemmas within the European Union. For example, 26 out of 27 countries, representing 400 million people, may want something, but the preference of less than a million people, or even a country with a population of less than a million, can render it sufficient,” he said.

Therefore, he added, “Turkey and the European Union – 500 million people – can be held hostage by one country”, before stressing that “the current system makes this possible”.