President Ersin Tatar spoke to the press on Wednesday (May 8) following his one- hour meeting with the UN Secretary General’s (UNSG) Personal Envoy María Ángela Holguin.

 

The President stated that the UNSG’s Personal Envoy was carrying out her third round of visits to the Island of Cyprus as part of her specific mandate to explore whether common ground exists or not between the sides to start new and formal negotiations.

 

President Tatar said the “new vision and position of the Turkish Cypriot Side, that was put forward at the 5+UN informal meeting in Geneva three-and-a-half years ago is continuing”.

 

Referring to his recent visit to The Gambia where he participated in the 15th summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), President Tatar stated that he had the opportunity to assess the Cyprus issue with Hakan Fidan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye, whilst travelling together to the summit. Tatar said “Türkiye fully supports our position that the inherent rights of the Turkish Cypriot People – namely our sovereign equality and equal international status – are reaffirmed and accepted for a new and formal process to start. We will not take a step back from this position and I have today reiterated this point to Ms Holguin in our meeting.”

 

Stating that he “put forward these issues in the meeting with Ms Holguin,” President Tatar said: “If a common ground cannot be found between the sides, there is no point in meeting and starting another process.”

 

President Tatar said he asked the Columbian diplomat to “take a snapshot of the situation” and to “reflect this objectively in her report to the Secretary-General,” following the conclusion of her tenure.

“Ms Holguin will have had the opportunity to have seen first-hand the factual realities on the ground in Cyprus, the very nature and detail of the Cyprus issue and the unjust isolation inflicted on the Turkish Cypriot People,” President Tatar said, adding: “If the report is going to be just, it has to express all of these issues”.