UN should help reunify Cyprus: Turkey

Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has urged the United Nations (UN) to help the reunification of Cyprus before the end of 2016, when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s second five-year term ends.

Speaking in New York during a Thursday press conference after talks with Ban, Davutoglu said his country “will do everything possible for a sustainable, comprehensive peace in Cyprus.”

Cyprus was split into a Turkish-speaking north and Greek-speaking south in 1974, when Turkey invaded the island following a coup by supporters of a union with Greece. The breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north is recognized only by Ankara and the southern Greek Cypriot state.

Citing a 2004 peace blueprint drafted by the former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to reunite the island, the Turkish premier said Ankara “supported the Annan plan and I suggested to Mr. Ban Ki-moon that we need now a Ban Ki-moon plan before the end of his term to end this long-surviving crisis.”

In 2004, Turkish Cypriots accepted Annan’s plan, but Greek Cypriots rejected it.

UN-mediated peace talks to reunify the Mediterranean island faced a deadlock in October 2014 when Turkey announced plans to search for oil and gas in waters off Cyprus.

Davutoglu also called on the southern Greek Cypriot state to return to the negotiating table “as early as possible - like what we did in 2004.”

“It is better to come around the table and discuss in detail” the differences on several issues including natural resources, he said.

The governments of Cyprus, Egypt, and Greece say Turkey should stop gas exploration off the southern coast of Cyprus.

DB/HJL/AS

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