Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar, the personal envoy of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Cyprus, in Ankara to discuss recent developments related to the Cyprus issue.
The two also discussed the envoy’s meetings with the island’s two leaders during a visit last week, the Turkish foreign ministry said on Monday.
During the meeting, Fidan said Ankara supports the efforts of Guterres and emphasised that Türkiye, as a guarantor power and motherland, believes the most realistic solution to the Cyprus issue lies in the coexistence of two states on the island.
Fidan also stressed that approaches that fail to recognise the inherent rights of the Turkish Cypriots, namely their sovereign equality and equal international status based on the realities on the island, would not yield results.
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 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-administered Southern Cyprus entered the European Union in 2004, the same year that Greek Cypriots single-handedly blocked a UN plan to end the longstanding dispute.
