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Ankara won’t give up its security guarantees in Cyprus
Earlier this week, Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias rejected any peace deal that would allow Turkey to maintain the right to intervene militarily as a condition of reunifying the ethnically divided island.
“As a people who have suffered so much, under no circumstances would we want this supervision by whatever country to continue through these guarantees,” Christofias said on Monday.
The Turkish Cypriot side has demanded security guarantees that would empower Turkey to intervene in event of a constitutional breakdown or if Turkish Cypriots come under threat of attack.
“The continuity of the current guarantee system is essential for us,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin told reporters on Wednesday, when reminded of the remarks by Christofias.
The four-decade-old Cyprus problem actually erupted after the eastern Mediterranean island was granted independence from Britain in 1960, soon followed by an outbreak of inter-communal clashes in 1963. The island was ethnically divided between a Greek south and a Turkish north when the Turkish military intervened in 1974 under the terms of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee after diplomacy failed to end unrest on the island. Referring to the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, Özügergin stressed that “the treaty in which guarantee and security issues are addressed is an internationally recognized treaty.”
“Both Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus [KKTC] have repeatedly underlined that Turkey's effective and factual guarantee is indispensable,” Özügergin added, noting that this was once more confirmed by both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot side during KKTC President Mehmet Ali Talat's official visit to Ankara earlier this week.
No talk through press with China
Özügergin, meanwhile, declined to give a direct response to an official Chinese daily which earlier this week called on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to take back remarks likening the ethnic violence in China's northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang, which killed 184 people, to genocide.
“There is no need to give each other messages through the press,” Özügergin said, while noting there have been regular contacts between Turkish and Chinese authorities concerning the course of affairs in Xinjiang.
“Our interest in the fate of our kin is extremely natural,” he also said, displaying images posted from the Xinjiang region as the main reason for the sadness and indignation existing among the Turkish public.
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