DM Monitoring
North Nicosia: Negotiations on a federation model for a solution to the Cyprus issue will be “a waste of time” without basing it upon the two states on the island, according to the new prime minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
Upon forming the government earlier this month, Ersan Saner spoke to Anadolu Agency about the priorities of the new coalition, the partially opened town of Varosha (Maraş), the Cyprus issue, the policies they will adopt in the Eastern Mediterranean and relations between Turkey and the TRNC.
The three-party coalition government – the National Unity Party, the Democrat Party and the Rebirth Party – was formed on Dec. 9 in the wake of elections this October in which then-Prime Minister Ersin Tatar was elected the country’s president. Regarding negotiations with the Greek Cypriot administration, Saner remarked that the Turkish side has in good faith talked for the last 52 years to find a permanent resolution, but it cannot bear losing another 50.
“We say that all these negotiations should come to an end now … I can say that the negotiations without a two-state solution on the table and talks continuing based on a federation model thesis is nothing but a waste of time,” he asserted.
Cyprus has been divided into the TRNC in the north and the Greek Cypriot administration in the south since a 1974 military coup that aimed to annex Cyprus to Greece. Turkey’s military intervention as a guarantor power in 1974 put an end to years of persecution and violence against Turkish Cypriots by ultra-nationalist Greek Cypriots.
The decades since have seen several attempts to resolve the dispute, all ending in failure.
