The scheduled European Parliament vote on a report into the sexual violence suffered by Cypriot women during Turkey’s invasion of 1974, which is set to take place on Wednesday, is “incomprehensible”, German MEP Irmhild Bossdorf, of far-right party the Alternative for Germany, said on Tuesday.

“The Cyprus conflict is one of the topics at today’s Nato summit. Tomorrow, the president of the European Council, the president of the European Commission, and Turkish President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan will meet to discuss it. A solution to the Cyprus conflict is not expected,” she told the day’s plenary session.

She added that “while Turkey is demanding a two-state solution as the basis for further negotiations, the EU prefers moving closer to a confederation model”.

“We Germans, in particular, know how difficult it is to reconcile decades after the outbreak of a conflict, to resume dialogue, and to forgive one another. We have made considerable progress in this with our Polish neighbours. We are now working together in the European Parliament for a Europe of sovereign nations,” she said.

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As such, she added, “it is all the more comprehensible, therefore, that the European Parliament’s [gender equality committee (Femm)] has chosen to issue a resolution today concerning the 1974 attacks by Turkish armed forces on Cypriot women and girls”.

“No one wants to downplay or trivialise the suffering and crimes of that era, yet here is another attempt to link an ongoing geopolitical conflict to EU directives on gender mainstreaming,” she said.

To this end, she said that “a hearing involving gender-sensitive [non-government organisations] to formally recognise past witness testimony within the EU’s institutional framework, a retrospective justification of abortions to place them within the international legal context, and EU financial and technical support for gender-sensitive counselling are not the pressing issues between Turkey and Greece”.

“Once again, the Femm committee is overstepping its authority and wants this conflict to be interpreted through a gender lens. What an outrage! Let us instead work on improving cooperation between these two Nato partners,” she said.