Erdoğan: There should be two states on the island of Cyprus

“The Cyprus problem is a joint struggle of the Turkish and Cypriot peoples,” Turkish President, chairman of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at an enlarged meeting of the party’s parliamentary faction, Report informs.

“In the 1960s, they did not recognize the right of autonomy to the Turkish Cypriots.’ I have tried four times to help resolve this issue. However, I couldn’t. This time, I can fail again,’ former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned me. I promised him that he would not face any negative thing from the Turkish side as a guarantor country. He agreed and started working. I promised Annan that we would withdraw until this work was completed. We held a referendum. Seventy-five percent of our compatriots agreed to establish a federal state on the island with the Greeks. In contrast, sixty-five percent of Greeks voted against the idea. Despite all this, the Greek part of Cyprus has been admitted to the European Union, but not the Turkish part of Cyprus,” he said.

Speaking about the Cyprus issue settlement, Erdoğan stressed the impossibility of establishing a federal state on the island: “We see no change in the behavior of those who ignore the Turkish Cypriots. Whether they accept it or not, there is no other way out than a two-state solution.”

He also said that he would visit the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the coming days.