Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Erdoğan has accused the Greek Cypriots of being disrespectful by attending EU meetings with a flag that included the map of the whole island of Cyprus.
Evaluating the Cyprus issue during a speech he delivered at the 7th Bosphorus Summit in Istanbul yesterday, Erdoğan said “the negotiations in Cyprus have been going on for many years in Cyprus. It’s always diversion, diversion, diversion… This is the tactic. Do you know what? They’re saying ‘you hand over the whole of Cyprus to us and don’t intervene in anything’. This is their aim. But hold on, the blood of the martyrs are there. What are we expected to give?”
Erdoğan then argued that even the flag of the so-called Republic of Cyprus –is an inappropriate symbol, as it depicts the island as a single whole.
“Without any shame or stress, they attend the meetings of the EU with a flag where Cyprus is pictured as a whole.
But you cannot have such a flag. The TRNC is there. You are the Greek Administration of South Cyprus. In the north there is a Turkish Republic. You will acknowledge this. This is disrespectful. Either this way or that, they will understand, they will learn.” Erdoğan said.
Stating that the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had called him and requested a face to face meeting and to hold a multi-party conference, Erdoğan insisted that some kind of agreement had to be reached in Cyprus by the end of the year.
BRT