Leaders to meet again in Geneva today
9 January, 2017Turkish President Erdoğan had a telephone conversation with Greek Prime Minister Çipras
10 January, 2017Prime Minister Hüseyin Özgürgün stated that either there will be an agreement in Geneva or the TRNC will continue on its current path, and it has the strength to do so.
Özgürgün made the statement in response to a question by an İHA reporter in a press conference at the Prime Minister’s Office. Özgürgün assessed the possible scenarios for a solution or in case a solution cannot be found.
Responding to a question regarding why an agreement has not been reached in the negotiations in the last 50 years, the Prime Minister pointed to the diplomatic and religious bases, especially in the USA-UK and Russia triangle.
Özgürgün said:
“In fact, there is no change at the current stage of the negotiations. The Greek Cypriot side do not want the Turkish Cypriot side to be present in Cyprus. They are wondering if they can deal with it by making a deal or not. There is only one reason for the current deadlock but it is ignored because it is a confusing problem. If Turkey’s active and effective guarantee is not included, the bi-zonality is not clearly determined and a strong partnership is not formed based on the equality of the two people, any agreement reached will create serious problems. If you ask me, conflicts can come back too soon. We could see a struggle here again.”
In the context of the Cyprus issue, Prime Minister Özgürgün asserted that no improvement has been made with the UN Secretary Generals on Cyprus. “The new Secretary General will deal a lot with the Cyprus issue. He has to deal with it because the oldest problem on the UN’s agenda is the Cyprus problem. It does not seem to end”.