Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey is prepared to establish a naval military base in northern Cyprus if necessary, as reported by the state-run Anadolu news agency and Agence France-Presse.
“If necessary, we can build a base and naval facilities in the north. We also have the sea,” Erdogan stated while returning from a visit to Cyprus. He accused Greece of planning a similar base on the island.
On Saturday, Erdogan visited northern Cyprus, where Ankara declared the establishment of the internationally unrecognized “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” in 1983, marking the fiftieth anniversary of Turkey’s invasion of the northern Mediterranean island.
Erdogan also mentioned the construction of the Presidency and Parliament buildings of the Turkish Republic in Northern Cyprus. He criticized Greece for establishing a military base while Turkey is building political infrastructure.
He dismissed the possibility of resuming international negotiations on Cyprus’s future without recognizing an equal standing between the two sides. “We do not believe that it is possible to launch a new negotiation process without defining an equation that notes that the two sides sit peer-to-peer and leave the table peer-to-peer,” Erdogan stated.
Erdogan praised the presence of the opposition in Nicosia, represented by the head of the Republican People’s Party, Ozgur Ozil, on the official platform. He emphasized the unity between the government and opposition on the Cyprus issue, noting that it represents the concerns of 85 million people in Turkey.
