- Turkey ready to build Cyprus naval station
- Erdogan visited Northern Cyprus for invasion anniversary
- Turkey rejects UN-backed federal reunification talks
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey is ready to create a naval station in Cyprus 50 years after its soldiers invaded the now-divided island.
On Sunday, Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency quoted the leader as stating, “If necessary, we can construct a base and naval structures in the north” of Cyprus.
Erdogan stated that he travelled back to Turkey after visiting Northern Cyprus on Saturday to commemorate 50 years since Turkey’s invasion. He also accused rival Greece of attempting to create its naval base in Cyprus, over which both sides remain as split as ever.
Cyprus obtained independence from Britain in 1960, but a joint administration between Greek and Turkish Cypriots swiftly collapsed following violence that saw Turkish Cypriots retreat into enclaves and the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force.
Turkey took up more than a third of the island in 1974, expelling over 160,000 Greek Cypriots to the south.
Cyprus has since been divided by ethnicity, with Greek and Turkish Cypriots residing on opposite sides of a UN-controlled border.
In 1983, Turkey established the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a breakaway entity recognized only by Turkey.
On Saturday, Erdogan took part in a military parade in north Nicosia commemorating the day Turkey launched its attack in 1974.
As Greek Cypriots remembered those dead and still missing since their departure in 1974, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides stated on Saturday that reunification was the only solution.
A divided Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 after Greek Cypriots decisively rejected a UN plan to resolve their issues with Turkish Cypriots.
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However, on the opposite side of the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separates the two settlements, Erdogan rejected the UN-backed federal model on Saturday, saying restarting talks on such a plan was pointless.
Frankly, we do not believe it is conceivable to begin a fresh negotiating process without first establishing an equation in which both parties sit down as equals and leave the table as equals, he stated.
The previous round of UN-backed discussions to reunify the island failed in 2017.
“We erect the Northern Cyprus presidency and parliament building on the island. “They are building a military base; we are building a political base,” Erdogan stated.
He also praised the “precious” presence of Ozgur Ozel, the leader of Turkey’s most prominent opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), during his visit on Saturday, saying it reflected Turkey’s population’s “unity” on Cyprus.
