Article author:
Associated Press
NICOSIA, CYPRUS (AP) — Cyprus' foreign ministry said Thursday it would lodge a formal protest against a meeting between the ethnically divided island nation's leader, a Turkish Cypriot, and the president of Azerbaijan. Said .uppartition campaign.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar during the Islamic Solidarity Games in Turkey was "disappointing and regrettable." intention” was expressed. He called on the Azerbaijan government to take "corrective action".
The ministry said the meeting violated a UN Security Council resolution condemning the decades-old unilateral declaration of an independent Turkish state in northern Cyprus. rice field. Turkey's backing of Cyprus' demands could undermine Azerbaijan's bid for a European Union partnership deal, which requires the consent of EU member Cyprus, he added.
Cyprus was partitioned in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup d'etat by allied supporters of Greece. Turkey is the only country that recognizes the Turkish Cypriot Declaration of Independence. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, but full benefits apply only to the southern part of Greek Cyprus, a Mediterranean island with an internationally recognized government.
Earlier Turkic-Cypriot leaders defended a peace deal establishing Cyprus as a federation of Greek-speaking and Turkic-Cypriot zones. Tatars, with Turkey's backing, insist on a bilateral agreement based on "sovereign equality" between Turkish Cypriots and the country's majority Greek Cypriots.
The Tatars argue that his nearly 50-year negotiations for the federalization of Cyprus have failed, and that a bilateral agreement is the only viable route. Greek Cypriots reject any agreement formalizing the division of the island.
The Cypriot government is concerned that meetings between Tatars and foreign heads of state are intended to secure political approval for the North's secession in favor of a two-state agreement. there is
