The north’s ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli on Friday said that opposition Turkish Cypriot leadership election candidate Tufan Erhurman would win next month’s election “by a long way” if he supported a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem.
“Tufan Erhurman and his supporters face a question mark they must overcome and convince the public. This path cannot be followed without Turkey, as the motherland. They themselves admit this. Turkey has repeatedly stated that a federal solution is out of the question. How will Erurman convince Turkey when he is elected president?” he said during an appearance on Kibris Postasi TV.
He added that “I love Tufan very much, but he has his own problems”.
“If Erhurman had run as an independent candidate and championed a two-state solution, he would have been elected and won by a long way … I do not know how Tufan will explain [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s speech at the United Nations,” he said.
Arikli and his party the YDP have endorsed incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s campaign for re-election, though he did stress during a campaign stop last month that this endorsement was one of the two-state solution and not necessarily of Tatar as a man.
“Supporting Tatar, who pursues a two-state solution, is a national duty for the YDP. We stand with our cause, not that of Tatar,” he said.
Erdogan had declared in his speech at the UN general assembly on Tuesday that a solution to the Cyprus problem “cannot be built on the federal model, which has been attempted numerous times before but failed due to the Greek Cypriot side’s uncompromising stance”.
With this in mind, Arikli said Erhurman is “avoiding talking about a federation as much as possible right now, instead talking about domestic politics”.
At his most recent major campaign rally on Tuesday, Erhurman had said that incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s five-year term in office has been an anomaly in Turkish Cypriot history in the lack of progress on the Cyprus problem there has been.
“Before now, we had four presidents, the late Rauf Raif Denktash, Mehmet Ali Talat, Dervish Eroglu, and Mustafa Akinci. During their terms, the rights of the Turkish Cypriot people were defended at the negotiating table, crossing points were opened, and the international community recognised the Turkish Cypriot community,” he said.
“We need to say we exist, because for the past five years, our voices have been inaudible. Our words are incomprehensible, our names are unknown, and our existence is unremembered. This is not the situation we desire. We reject these actions. Everyone will know that the Turkish Cypriot people exist on this island.”
Previously, he had said that every corner of Cyprus “will be Europe”.
“I swear and I promise, there will be no European south or Middle Eastern north on this island. Every corner of this island will be Europe. All young people, regardless of where they were born, will live together in a life worthy of human dignity. We do not accept inequality,” he said.