The Cyprus problem has been solved, the north’s ‘foreign minister’ Tahsin Ertugruloglu said on Tuesday, as he welcomed a delegation of academics and “opinion leaders” to his office.

The delegation, from a range of countries, including Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Iran and Greece, had visited Cyprus to attend the Bahcesehir University’s Mediterranean peace and diplomacy forum, which it hosted at its Cyprus campus.

“The Cyprus problem has been solved. The current situation is a de facto situation. So long as the Greek Cypriots are recognised as the so-called Republic of Cyprus, a solution cannot be anything other than the current situation,” he said.

He added that “Cyprus is the cause of the Turkish nation”, and that “the solidarity you have shown must serve as a lesson to all of us.

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“We have a motherland for which we are grateful. Our strength is equal to the strength of the motherland,” he said.

He went on to say that “no results can be achieved through negotiations in Cyprus” and that “any partnership with the Greek Cypriots is no longer in question”.

As such, he added, “there is no question of backtracking from the policy of a two-state solution based on sovereign equality”.

“We will stand by our state. We will walk together with our motherland,” he said.

Ertugruloglu’s position is not the official position of the Turkish Cypriot community, whose elected leader Tufan Erhurman favours a federal solution to the Cyprus problem.

Erhurman had said on Monday that the Turkish Cypriots’ will for a solution to the Cyprus problem is “clear”.

“We support the efforts of [United Nations] Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres] within the framework of our people’s will for a solution,” he said, adding that “the will for a solution, which the Turkish Cypriot people have demonstrated many times before, is clear”.

To this end, he said that “all sides know that our intention is not to negotiate for the sake of negotiating, but to negotiate for a solution, and that we will not enter into an open-ended process which will not yield results and will ultimately take us back to square one”.

Likewise, Turkey itself appears minded to support the current efforts being undertaken to bring about a resumption of negotiations in earnest on the Cyprus problem, with high-level sources having told the Cyprus Mail that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has green-lit the “new initiative” being undertaken to this end by the United Nations.

The sources said that Turkey’s support of both the 2004 referendum and the 2017 negotiations, both of which were rejected by the Greek Cypriot side, constitute evidence of Erdogan’s “pragmatic and constructive stance” and “will to engage in the hope of securing a solution to the Cyprus problem”.

UN envoy for the Cyprus problem Maria Angela Holguin is expected to resume her contacts with stakeholders after next week’s Nato leaders’ summit, which will be held in Ankara.