The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) has once again called on the international community to take steps toward reaffirming its inherent right to sovereign equality and equal international status.
In a written statement on Sunday, the TRNC foreign ministry noted that the TRNC and Türkiye’s official policy on the Cyprus issue are based on the principles of sovereign equality and equal international status.
The statement underlined that, for a lasting settlement to be reached on the island, the international community must recognise the TRNC's equal status.
"The fundamental reality is that there are two separate peoples and two independent and sovereign states living side by side on the island. Policies pursued in disregard of these realities will continue to be doomed to failure," the statement said.
On a proposed "rotating presidency" between Turkish and Greek Cypriots in a hypothetical state covering the whole island, the ministry said:
"Although this issue was an element of the model negotiated for decades, that model ultimately collapsed due to the maximalist and uncompromising stance of the Greek Cypriot Administration, which refused to recognise the TRNC's equal status and rejected the sharing of governance and resources. Moreover, the concept envisages a system of governance within a unitary state and represents a policy that is fundamentally incompatible with the TRNC's position based on sovereign equality and equal international status."
The statement once again called for the TRNC's sovereign equality and equal international status to be reaffirmed and urged the international community to take steps in this direction.
Similarly, referring in the European Parliament to "the right to two seats allocated to Turkish Cypriots" and attempting to claim those seats would mean accepting the status of the so-called 'Republic of Cyprus', in which Turkish Cypriots neither participate nor are represented and whose institutions were seized by force by the Greek Cypriot side in 1963, as well as accepting its EU membership based on that status.
"While such an approach cannot be accepted, the Turkish Cypriot people should also not be expected to support initiatives pursued in this direction."
The Greek Cypriot Administration has illicitly claimed to represent the whole island as a member of the European Union since 2004.
Decades-long issue
The island has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the UN to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece’s annexation of the island led to Türkiye’s military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence.
As a result, the TRNC was founded in 1983.
It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece, and the UK.
The Greek Cypriot Administration entered the EU in 2004, the same year that Greek Cypriots single-handedly blocked a UN plan to end the longstanding dispute.
