Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on Friday night said comments made by President Nikos Christodoulides regarding the Cyprus problem during a visit of Greek President Konstantinos Tasoulas were “null and void,”

“I said that an atmosphere of solution is needed on this island. I said, and I say, that Mr. Christodoulides and I have a lot to do on this issue (…),” Erhurman said in a post on social media.

According to the Turkish Cypriot leader, he and Christodoulides had agreed during their first meeting on Thursday they would not comment on the Cyprus problem to the press for the time being.

Erhurman accused Christodoulides of breaching said agreement, following his remarks during a ceremony honouring the soldiers of the Hellenic forces (Eldyk), who fought in Cyprus in 1974, on Friday.

During the event, Christodoulides said “a solution to the Cyprus problem without the withdrawal of the Turkish occupying troops cannot be accepted,” reiterating that the Republic could not settle for an arrangement that kept it “captive to anachronistic guarantees and logic of the cold war period.”

“It is absurd for Mr Christodoulides, who has signed without the will of the Turkish Cypriot people (…) numerous military agreements with states that do not have the status of guarantor country, to attempt to impose such a condition on this issue,” Erhurman said.

He referred to the north as “one of two equal co-founders with sovereign rights on this island,” and disregarded Christodoulides’ remarks, saying that he considered them invalid.

More to follow.

Erhurman said that Christodoulides had incorrectly referred to the four-point proposal for comprehensive negotiations submitted by the Turkish Cypriot leader to the UN in the context of the two leaders’ meeting, as a precondition, stressing that this was not the case.

The plan had been presented in Thursday’s meeting, alongside a ten-point set of concrete issues to be resolved during future negotiations. 

These outlined conditions included resolving issues related to mixed marriages, stopping arrests and acts that create a “negative climate” on the island, and re-establishing an EU ad hoc committee.

“[The points] were not preconditions, but with this statement [the remarks made by Christodoulides], he has put forward a ‘precondition’ that he knows is impossible to accept,” he said.

Christodoulides, asked about Erhurman’s statement at the opening of an Eoka exhibition on Saturday, said what he said on Friday was a “long-standing position of the Greek-Cypriot side,” and should not be understood as a response to Erhurman’s four-point plan.

“My statement (…) was the repetition of the long-standing position of the Greek Cypriot side that becomes even more relevant taking into account many facts, in particular the fact that the Republic of Cyprus is an EU member state, the EU is the best safety valve both for the implementation of the solution and for a peaceful future in Cyprus,” he said.

He emphasised that the talks had to proceed at the negotiating table, stressing the leaders need to pick up from where the talks were left after the 2017 talks in the Swiss resort of Crans Montana.

“This is our goal, and I really hope, always with a positive approach, because for us the current status quo cannot be the solution to the Cyprus problem, with a good mood we are ready, immediately, to come to the negotiating table,” he said.