Ertuğruloğlu: Status is the Main Issue in Cyprus

In a written statement, Ertuğruloğlu said he agreed with President Tufan Erhürman’s frequent remarks that the Turkish Cypriot people had a “commitment to a solution”. He added that the Greek Cypriot leader had also said that his people were committed to a solution.

“If both sides are committed to a solution, why have years of negotiations produced no results?” Ertuğruloğlu asked, saying that the essence of the Cyprus problem lay in the different definitions of the problem and the solution held by the two sides.

“One side sees as a ‘solution’ what the other side defines as the ‘problem’,” Ertuğruloğlu said, stressing that simply calling for the problem to be solved was not enough because there was no common understanding of the problem itself.

He said the two sides were seeking to resolve different problems and that this reality was being overlooked.

Ertuğruloğlu also criticised the positions of the UN Security Council and the European Union on the Cyprus problem, arguing that it was futile to expect a solution from the UN Security Council, which he said had created the problem, and the European Union, which he accused of entrenching it.

He said no initiative could produce an outcome satisfactory to the Turkish Cypriot people unless international actors corrected the mistakes they had made in the past.

“The Real Issue Is Status”

Ertuğruloğlu stressed that the fundamental issue in Cyprus was the question of status, saying that no solution should be expected as long as the Greek Cypriot side was treated as a “state” while the Turkish Cypriot side was treated as a “community” under it.

“In these unjust conditions, the Turkish Cypriot people’s commitment to a solution cannot have any meaning because these conditions make a solution impossible and keep the problem alive,” he said.

Ertuğruloğlu argued that some people, in an effort to appear committed to a solution, had accepted this situation and chosen not to view the issue as one of inequality of status.

“Those who give in to this mistake in their desire to appear pro-solution and those who do not see the issue as an inequality of status, whether they want it or not, end up serving the Greek Cypriot side’s definition of the problem and its interests,” he said.

Ertuğruloğlu said declarations by the two sides that they were committed to a solution meant nothing as long as there was no common understanding of the definition of the problem.

“All approaches other than this amount to nothing more than a waste of time, a loss of status and an exercise in futility,” he said.