On 4th February, 2016, Barış Burcu, the spokesperson of the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akıncı, issued a statement on his behalf.
The Cypriot Puzzle has translated it to English and presents it here.
Ιt is known that while the negotiations for reaching a solution to the Cyprus problem are continuing, the process of elections in South Cyprus have set off. It is understood that in the period of time until May, Greek Cypriot leaders will give messages with a view of satisfying their own community and will be increasingly doing so as the election day gets closer. We are hoping that actions will be responsible and discourses and distortions that may damage the peace process be avoided.
The position of our president His Excellency Akıncı, is not to reject the already reached consensus, and on the contrary, to accept these agreements as a foundation and to achieve progress based upon them. In this sense, the agreement of 11 February 2014 is an important document and It is evident that we are continuing the negotiations within that framework. Significant progress have been achieved on the topics of governance and power sharing, the economy, the EU and, the property.
How will the new state emerge is an issue which has been debated over the years with no result. Since both sides do not recognize each other and since we are not negotiating for a confederation of two separate and sovereign states, it is only natural that we will establish the United Federal Cyprus with two constituent states. The agreement of 11 February 2014 is clearly within this framework also.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that we accept and try to amend the “Republic of Cyprus” from which we have been excluded for many years and which have been representing only the Greek Cypriot community. In fact, as our president has announced with respect to several issues, we will create a new structure with a settlement. As our president has expressed in his statement on 1st September 2015, “This new structure that will be established – which will be new with its name, flag and everything, will be a federative structure. However this new structure will not go and apply to the UN and the EU for membership. In those platforms, the new structure will take the place of the old one. This is the gist of the issue. TRNC is a structure and I am the president of this structure. This structure will find itself a place in a new structure. It will transform into the constituent state here. Just like the transformation of the structure that is under Greek Cypriot management into a constituent state structure again under the management of Greek Cypriots and just like the way we will take our place in the federal partnership that these two structures will create. This is what is needed in Cyprus.”
As our president has stated to the public on numerous occasions, this position is very clear and no one has the right to distort this. Another important issue is this: It is of course important to win at least a significant portion of the Greek Cypriot majority who said “No” with a 75% to the Annan Plan. However, there is another important point. That is the necessity of winning the significant majority of Turkish Cypriots who went on the streets for a solution yet found no response years ago. Our presidency looks at the issue within this framework.