Turkish Cypriots are in favor of “the new policy”, a two-state solution, on Cyprus as decades of negotiations for a federation failed to resolve the Cyprus issue, said the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
On the sidelines of this weekend’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Mediterranean Turkey, Ersin Tatar said the goal of the recent informal talks in Geneva in April was to determine whether there is a common ground between the parties.
For decades, the parties negotiated for a federal solution but these talks could not come to a conclusion, and this is no longer the case, said Tatar.
“Now we are defending the new policy (two-state solution) on Cyprus. I based my presidential mandate on this. We said that we want to take this process with a new vision on Cyprus, and that there cannot be a federation-based agreement,” he said.
“So far, almost all of the comprehensive negotiation proposals, including the UN’s, have been approved by the Turkish side, and the Greek side has rejected them all. Because the Greek side has never wanted a partnership with us on that basis (federation), and they wanted to share neither wealth nor administration with the Turks,” Tatar added.
The Greek Cypriots’ aim was to make Cyprus a Greek-Hellenic island, and it still is, and they make no effort to hide it, Tatar concluded.