ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday ruled out discussing a federal system for the reunification of Cyprus, insisting that an agreement between two states is the only solution to the ethnically divided island.
In an address to lawmakers from his ruling party, Erdogan also slammed Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, accusing him of confronting and disrupting recently resumed Greek-Turkish talks aimed at easing tensions between the two sides. two neighbors.
“There is no way out for Cyprus other than the two-state solution,” Erdogan said, referring to a peace deal that would be negotiated between two equal sovereign states. “Whether you accept it or not, there can be no such thing as a federation.”
Erdogan said: “There is no point in discussing the old solutions … which have ignored the Turkish people on the island and condemned the negotiations to failure for 50 years. That business is over now. ”
His statement came as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is due to convene a meeting next month that will bring together rival Greek and Turkish Cypriots, as well as Cyprus’ guarantees “- Greece, Turkey and Britain – to assess the chances of a resumption of talks. with reunify the island.
The island has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded in a coup to unify the island with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a declaration of Turkish Cypriot independence in the northern third of the island.
Turkey and the breakaway Turkish Cypriots say a solution that provides for a federation of Greek-speaking and Turkish-speaking areas has been tried several times over the past five decades and has led to the failure of what they say is the unwillingness of Greek Cypriots to to share power with Turkish Cypriots.
Greek Cypriots strongly reject any agreement that would legitimize the ethnic partition of the eastern Mediterranean island nation.
Mitsotakis, who visited Cyprus earlier this week, said Greece’s priority was to end the Turkish occupation of Cyprus and that the insistence of Turkey and Turkish Cypriots on a two-state solution was “unrealistic”.
Erdogan said Mitsotakis should “know his place.”
“If he seeks peace, he should not provoke me,” Erdogan said. “If you don’t know your place, it means you’re kicking the table.”
Last month, Greek and Turkish officials had their first meeting in Istanbul in five years, after a year in which the two NATO members reached the brink of conflict in the eastern Mediterranean.