Turkey has been warned by the European Union against not inviting a delegation from the Republic of Cyprus to attend November’s Cop31 climate summit, which will take place in the Turkish city of Antalya.

The matter was raised by Cypriot Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou during Thursday’s meeting of EU climate ministers, with it having been widely reported that Cypriot officials were not invited to preparatory meetings organised by Turkey earlier in the year, despite the island holding the Council of the EU’s rotating presidency.

Last month, news website Politico quoted diplomats as having said that Turkey did not invite Cyprus to a Cop31 briefing in New York, and then objected when Cypriots attempted to attend the briefing alongside the EU’s delegation.

At the time, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet had reported that Turkish officials had “rejected the criticism, asserting that Ankara is under no obligation to invite an entity it does not recognise diplomatically”.

The newspaper added that Turkey “reiterated its longstanding position on the Cyprus issue, emphasising that Greek Cyprus does not represent the entirety of the island”.

On this occasion, however, Turkey appears to have denied assertions that it intends to not invite a Cypriot delegation in November, with Reuters quoting Turkish diplomatic sources as having said that Cypriot delegations had been invited to “all Cop31-related events under the coordination of the UN”.

Those sources, it reported, had said that the New York briefing had been organised by the Turkish government independently of the Cop structure.

“The various contacts and meetings conducted by our country in the lead-up to Cop31 are events organised at the national level for purposes of preparation, consultation, and promotion,” the sources are quoted as having said.

Additionally, the sources reportedly pointed out that the official process of inviting leaders and delegations to the November summit has “not yet begun”.

Nonetheless, European Climate Commissioner Wokpe Hoekstra was keen to set his stall out, and warned that “we are not going to accept” the prospect of Cyprus not being invited to the summit.

“The full solidarity of the other 26 will apply,” he said, in reference to the EU’s 26 other member sttates, adding that “there are 27 member states that need to be treateed in the same way”, and that “this is a union of 27, full stop”.

Likewise, Poland’s secretary of state for climate affairs Krysztof Bolesta said that “if Cyprus is unfairly treated, we should not be going to Turkey”, while Irish Climate Minister Darragh O’Brien told Reuters that his country stands in “full solidarity with Cyprus”, and that “this situation doesn’t need to escalate”.

Turkey has been designated as a co-host for November’s summit, alongside Australia, with Turkish Environment Minister Murat Kurum designated as the chairman of Cop31 and Australian Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen set to preside over negotiations between political leaders at the Antalya summit.

A host country does not have the right to unilaterally exclude any United Nations member state from the negotiations, but it is epected that a series of other events and agreements will be held and reached during the 12-day event in November.

Christodoulides alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Baku in 2024

Azerbaijan hosted the Cop29 summit in 2024, with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides being received in Baku as the president of Cyprus, and his Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos meeting his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov on the sidelines of the event.

That invite came despite Azerbaijan typically maintaining a closer relationship with the Turkish Cypriots, as demonstrated by the fact that when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman in April, the Azerbaijani govenrment referred to Erhurman as the “president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” in its official release.

Aliyev has previously used the same title to refer to Erhurman’s predecessor, Ersin Tatar, and also promised on the sidelines of last year’s Antalya diplomacy forum to ensure that the north will gain international recognition.

“We are only thinking about how we can help our brothers protect their state … They deserve this in terms of history and what they have done,” he said.