Associated Press
June 6, 2022

Cyprus to UN: Turkey seeks full control of breakaway north

Cyprus will lodge a complaint with the United Nations over Turkey’s new financial assistance deal with breakaway Turkish Cypriots that demonstrates Ankara’s “complete control” over them, the president of the ethnically divided island nation said Monday.

President Nicos Anastasiades, a Greek Cypriot, told state broadcaster CyBC that he would also include in the protest letter Turkey’s move to designate the Turkish Cypriots’ unrecognized, main airport as a domestic flight route, effectively turning it into a Turkish one.

Many liberal Turkish Cypriots fear that both the financial deal and the airport designation are the clearest signals yet that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to eventually annex breakaway northern Cyprus.

“I will proceed with the complaint again with the United Nations relative to the airport which…in essence is being integrated and considered a Turkish airport,” Anastasiades said. “Secondly, (financial) protocol clearly demonstrates Ankara’s complete control of the Turkish Cypriots.”

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In Cyprus
May 31, 2022

Turkey threatens to demand ‘trnc’ recognition before allowing NATO enlargement

Ankara is threatening to put the status of the breakaway regime in the Turkish-held northern part of Cyprus on the table as part of the negotiations to allow Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

The two Scandinavian countries had reversed their decades-long opt-out from the NATO alliance in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and threats made by Russia to both countries.

But Turkey which strongly opposes the enlargement of the international defense pact considers using the diplomatic crisis as a means to press for unacceptable recognition of the ‘trnc’, according to a press report in Britain’s Daily Express.

A source close to Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar confirmed to the paper that Turkish President Recep Erdogan will ask that the occupied area is recognised as a separate country.

Cyprus is divided since a 1974 invasion by Turkey which still maintains troops in the northern part of the EU-member island. And it is the only country recognizing the illegal regime which is flooded with Turkish settlers as well.