Özersay: “Our contacts were fruitful in terms of conveying the views of the Turkish Cypriot side”
16 January, 2019Aksoy: “The problem is Greek Cypriot side’s refusal to share political power”
21 January, 2019One of the world’s most leading News Agencies, Reuters, cited an interview of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kudret Özersay who made a diplomatic visit to the USA last week. Reuters headed the news ‘Turkish Cypriots seek an end to natural gas dispute’ and underlined that Foreign Minister Özersay delivered an opinion for avoiding the possibility of instability in the region after visits with Trump Administration and some members of the U.S. Congress and Özersay said that the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean regarding the natural gas issue is unfair. In addition to that Reuters pointed out that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kudret Özersay said ‘the terms of drilling are unacceptable because Greek Cypriots are able to profit from drilling even before a settlement is reached however there is an approach which means Turkish Cypriots can only profit after an agreement, this approach needs to be changed at the earliest’.
In the news of Reuters, it was indicated that Özersay stated that he was trying to put pressure on the Greek Cypriot side through international actors mainly USA, and that he believed that the two sides will cooperate on natural gas in this way.
In his interview with Reuters, Özersay also pointed out that the Turkish Cypriot side has similar applications to supply the names of wanted individuals which are on the Interpol list to some foreign states and he also added that: “We are open to implementing international legal rules as much as possible and to cooperate with all international actors, including international organisations.”