Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday (April 30) he does not believe a United Nations-led meeting on restarting peace talks for the ethnically split Cyprus will yield results.
On Thursday (April 29), the U.N. and the three guarantor nations in the Mediterranean island failed to bridge disagreements to restart peace talks on Cyprus. U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said there would be fresh talks in two to three months.
“I don’t trust or believe in Greek Cypriots. They have never acted honestly,” Erdogan told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul.
“Now it’s been pushed back two to three months, but I again don’t believe any result will be achieved, because they are not honest,” he said.
Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long struggle between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the U.N. to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
The island has been divided since 1964 when ethnic attacks forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety. In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aiming at Greece’s annexation led to Turkey’s military intervention as a guarantor power. The TRNC was founded in 1983.
(Reuters)
