Sovereign equality, equal international status
Ertugruloglu said that seeking the future of the Turkish Cypriot people on federation grounds that have been tried and exhausted many times is not only a futile effort and a waste of time, but also an attempt to weaken the basis of the national Cyprus policy and diminish the status of the Turkish Cypriot people.
“The future of the Turkish Cypriot people has been secured under the roof of their own sovereign state and by walking shoulder to shoulder with the motherland Türkiye. Those who aspire to govern our state, the TRNC, must fully grasp this reality and be sincere with our people,” he noted.
Reacting to the linking of the Cyprus settlement process with Türkiye’s relations with the EU, Ertugrulogu questioned: “How can a fair approach on behalf of the Turkish Cypriot people be expected from the EU, which has always sided with the Greek Cypriots on the Cyprus issue? And by what logic can the progress of Türkiye’s relations with the EU be tied to developments in Cyprus?”
“We saw this deceptive film in 2004 and experienced it painfully. To those who want to remake and act in the same film, I would like to remind them of the words of our Founding President Rauf Denktas: ‘Without Türkiye, we would not go not only to the EU, but even to heaven.’ We have never trusted the EU, and we do not trust it.”
Mentioning that Türkiye consistently and firmly emphasises the reality that “a lasting, just and sustainable solution on the island is only possible based on a two-state solution founded on the confirmation of the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot people,” Ertugruloglu said: “Is it sensible to pin hopes on other dangerous scenarios that are incompatible with the facts?”
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