US steps encouraging the Greek Cypriot administration of Southern Cyprus to arm itself additional don’t contribute to regional stability, the Turkish Foreign Ministry mentioned on Sunday.
“As we have repeatedly emphasized together with the TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus), the steps taken by the US at the expense of disrupting the balance on the Island of Cyprus and encouraging the Greek Cypriot administration’s armament do not contribute in any way to regional stability or to a just, sustainable and lasting settlement of the Cyprus issue,” mentioned a ministry assertion.
Türkiye strongly helps the assertion made by the TRNC Foreign Ministry on the latest anchoring of a US assault submarine at a Greek Cypriot port and the armament actions of the Greek Cypriot administration, it added.
“We once again call on the US to reconsider these policies. We reiterate that Türkiye will continue to resolutely defend the rights and interests of the TRNC under all circumstances and conditions, within the framework of the responsibility stemming from our guarantor status,” the assertion learn.
Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, regardless of a collection of diplomatic efforts by the UN to realize a complete settlement.
Ethnic assaults beginning within the early Nineteen Sixties pressured Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for his or her security.
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup geared toward Greece‘s annexation of the island led to Türkiye’s navy intervention as a guarantor energy to guard Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a outcome, the TRNC was based in 1983.
It has seen an on-and-off peace course of in recent times, together with a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland underneath the auspices of guarantor international locations Türkiye, Greece, and the UK.
The Greek Cypriot administration was admitted to the EU in 2004, the identical 12 months Greek Cypriots thwarted a UN plan to finish the longstanding dispute.
Source: www.anews.com.tr
