Erdoğan: “We have the right to speak in Cyprus as a guarantor country”
16 July, 2019Özersay: “EU’s attitude shows disrespect to the political will of the Turkish Cypriots”
17 July, 2019Prime Minister Ersin Tatar responded to the EU Council’s decision to impose economic and political sanctions on Turkey over its drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean in a written statement and said ‘The EU should have taken into consideration the proposals put forward by the representatives of the Turkish Cypriot people rather than taking these decisions against Turkey’.
Prime Minister Tatar pointed out that the EU Council’s decision ignored the political will of the Turkish Cypriot people and the European Council has added another new biased decision in favour of the Greek Cypriot side.
Furthermore Tatar underlined that the decision had only contributed to the Greek Cypriot side’s aim of benefitting from the status quo and said ‘the EU may ignore the will of the Turkish Cypriots and impose economic and political sanctions on Turkey over its drilling activities as much as they wish, however, the reality is that there are two sovereign people, states and democracies in the island and Turkey recognises only the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Turkey has always stressed that the Greek Cypriot Administration is not its interlocutor.