ISTANBUL
Türkiye’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Thursday condemning allegations against a senior ministry official involved in the 2017 negotiations on Cyprus, saying they are “unfounded” and “completely untrue.”
“Some sources, referring to a book published abroad, made unfounded allegations against Feridun Sinirlioglu, the former undersecretary of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, who met with the Greek Cypriot negotiator within the framework of the simultaneous visits of Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot negotiators to Athens and Ankara,” ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said on Twitter.
“These allegations of a compromising attitude to reach a consensus within the framework of these mutual visits are completely untrue,” he said. “The statements of Sinirlioglu, then Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on our national issues, especially Cyprus, are recorded in state documents and open sources.”
“These baseless allegations, which are part of the efforts of the Greek Cypriot side to shed their responsibility with a sense of guilt, should not be credited,” he added.
Bilgic said that Türkiye’s Cyprus policy is clear and that this policy is well known by all parties.
Decades-long Cyprus issue
Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the UN to achieve a comprehensive settlement. Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece’s annexation of the island led to Türkiye’s military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was founded in 1983.
It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece and the UK.
The Greek Cypriot administration entered the European Union in 2004, the same year that Greek Cypriots thwarted a UN plan to end the longstanding dispute.
