Declarations of willingness to reach a Cyprus settlement cannot produce results unless the two sides first agree on the nature of the problem, Turkish Cypriot ‘foreign minister’ Tahsin Ertugruloglu said on Wednesday.

He said he agreed with repeated comments by Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman that the Turkish Cypriot side is committed to finding a solution to the Cyprus problem.

But he questioned why decades of negotiations have failed to produce a settlement despite both sides repeatedly stating that they want a solution.

“The answer,” he argued, “is that what one side considers to be the solution, the other defines as the problem.”

Ertugruloglu also criticised both the UN Security Council and the European Union, claiming that the former “created the problem” while the latter “consolidated” it.

He said that without what he described as the international community correcting the mistakes of the past, it would not be possible to achieve an outcome acceptable to the Turkish Cypriot side.

He argued that the core issue is what he described as “status inequality”, saying no solution can be expected while the Republic of Cyprus is recognised internationally as a state and the Turkish Cypriot side is treated as a community.

Ertugruloglu said that unless the two sides share a common understanding of the nature of the Cyprus problem, declarations of willingness to reach a settlement “have no meaning.”

The negotiators of the two sides are expected to meet ahead of the leaders’ meeting on August 26 to prepare for it.

The two leaders are expected to examine whether there is willingness on the Turkish Cypriot side to move forward on the issue.

A record of the convergences reached in previous rounds of talks is currently being prepared and will be provided to all parties involved, including the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot sides and the three guarantor powers.