Cyprus said on Friday Turkey must drop its insistence on a two-state solution for the divided island if it hopes to make progress on its long-stalled bid to join the European Union.<\/p>\n
Speaking in Berlin after talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said Turkey\u2019s position on Cyprus was an obstacle to its EU ambitions. He also argued that Ankara should not gain access to the bloc\u2019s defence fund, known as SAFE, saying that Turkey \u2013 though a NATO member \u2013 has no defense or security agreement with the EU.<\/p>\n
Merz said Christodoulides had sought Germany\u2019s support in efforts to break the deadlock over Cyprus, emphasising Berlin\u2019s strong relationship with Ankara.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discussed various options for how this could be achieved,\u201d Merz told a joint press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discussed a very concrete proposal, which I received with interest, and that we could take a step in this direction during the Cypriot presidency. I expressed the German government\u2019s readiness to actively participate in this process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cyprus assumes the EU\u2019s rotating presidency in January. Cyprus and Turkey, which has been an EU candidate for decades, have no diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n
Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 after a brief Greece-inspired coup. It remains divided into an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north that only Ankara recognizes.<\/p>\n
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday a two-state settlement was the most realistic option to settle the Cyprus problem, a position rejected by Greek Cypriots.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Mr Erdogan insists on two states in Cyprus, certainly Turkey cannot get close to the EU,\u201d Christodoulides said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is important is that the EU and the international community, whatever Mr Erdogan says, [define] a solution based on UN Security Council resolutions,\u201d Christodoulides said. [Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cyprus said on Friday Turkey must drop its insistence on a two-state solution for the divided island if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[8612,5293,2000,299,5187,1699,12072,285,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-571657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-cyprus","9":"tag-diplomacy","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-foreign-affairs","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-turkey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115552825704984248","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}