Türkiye: No Cyprus initiative can succeed without TRNC rights

Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz declared on Monday that no initiative regarding Cyprus or the Eastern Mediterranean can succeed without Ankara’s involvement or by disregarding Turkish Cypriot rights, speaking at a ceremony marking July 20 Peace and Freedom Day in Lefkosa.

Sovereign equality

Yilmaz emphasized that “Türkiye, as the motherland and guarantor, has stood and will continue to stand by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus so that Turkish Cypriots can live freely, honorably and safely under the roof of their own state,” noting that Ankara’s 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation fulfilled its obligations under the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee to end violence against Turkish Cypriots.

The vice president argued that decades of negotiations have collapsed because the Greek Cypriot side refuses to share governance or recognize Turkish Cypriots as equal partners. “The international community must now accept that Turkish Cypriots are as much the owners of this island as Greek Cypriots,” he said, adding that proposals reducing Turkish Cypriots to minority status cannot yield a lasting solution.

Guarantor power intervention

Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots since ethnic attacks 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 to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence, resulting in the founding of the TRNC in 1983.

Yilmaz urged the international community to end the unjust isolation and embargoes imposed on Turkish Cypriots, stating that the TRNC has maintained its existence for 43 years with strong institutions. “Cyprus will never be a Greek Cypriot island,” he said, stressing that the Century of Türkiye will also be the century of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Greek Cypriot Administration entered the EU in 2004 — the same year Greek Cypriots rejected a UN plan to end the dispute.