A British lawmaker has argued in favor of recognizing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) as an independent state.
"There is no reason, that I can see, that the TRNC cannot be accepted by the U.N. as an independent state," Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Sammy Wilson, wrote in an article for the news portal PoliticsHome on Monday.
In the article titled "Cyprus needs its own Good Friday Agreement," Wilson, a Northern Irish politician, compared the situation in Cyprus to that in Ireland in the past.
"The 2010 International Court of Justice decision regarding Kosovo's independence should grant further legality to the TRNC's request," he opined.
"If in the future there is a scope for reintegration, an agreement like the Belfast/Good Friday agreement would allow for that," the lawmaker said.
The MP also suggested that the U.K. could be a mediator nation to broker an agreement between the two sides in Cyprus.
In the article, he stressed the importance of peace as a goal.
Cyprus has been mired in a decadeslong dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the U.N. to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
After ethnic attacks in the early 1960s and a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece’s annexation in 1974, Türkiye launched a military intervention, dubbed Cyprus Peace Operation, as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence, eventually leading to the foundation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1983.
An international embargo against Turkish Cyprus is currently in place in several areas that allow access to international communications, postal services and transport only through Türkiye.
The TRNC has been committed to demanding a two-state solution that would ensure international recognition and equal sovereignty and status, something the Greek Cypriots reject out of hand.
The Greek Cypriot administration joined the European Union in 2004, the same year Greek Cypriots thwarted the U.N.’s Annan plan to end the longstanding dispute.
Today, the Turkish side supports a solution based on the equal sovereignty of the two states on the island but the Greek side wants a federal solution based on the hegemony of the Greeks.
The island has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years. U.N.-backed reunification talks have been in limbo since the last round collapsed at Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in July 2017 between guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece and the U.K.
Britain, which holds an air base and a listening post in the south, is largely accused by TRNC of being a “mere spectator” to the situation on the island. While former U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who was serving during the Annan plan, argued a two-state solution was more realistic, Britain has been consistently in favor of the federal solution.
Earlier this year, a British parliamentary delegation made the trip to the north, and Turkish-Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar later reciprocated it to persuade political stakeholders of the need to reaffirm the “inherent sovereignty and equality” of the TRNC.
Historically, the island was annexed by Britain during World War I when it still belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Cyprus gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1960, after 82 years of British control, though the U.K. government continued providing “financial aid” to the island until 1964.
The Cyprus crisis also looms over Türkiye-Greece ties, which are already strained due to several outstanding conflicts. With relations on the mend in recent months, the issue is resurfacing as a top priority for rapprochement.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis earlier this week said his government wants to take full advantage of a developing positive political climate with Türkiye but reiterated Athens’ position on the Cyprus issue.
Referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s outreach to the EU, when he urged at a summit last month the bloc to pave the way for Türkiye’s membership if Ankara admits Sweden into NATO, Mitsotakis said improved European-Turkish ties can’t exclude a Cyprus peace accord and that the issue can’t be “left by the wayside.”
