Turkey: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated that Turkey is ready to build a naval base in Cyprus, 50 years after its forces invaded the now-divided island.
The leader of Cyprus was quoted as saying on Sunday by Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency, “If necessary, we can construct a base and naval structures in the north.”
Erdogan claimed that on Saturday, he visited Northern Cyprus and then took a plane back to Turkey to commemorate 50 years since Turkey’s invasion. In addition, he charged that competitor Greece intended to build a naval station in Cyprus, over which the two countries are now at odds.
Cyprus obtained independence from Britain in 1960, but after rioting that resulted in the withdrawal of Turkish Cypriots into enclaves and the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force, a shared administration between Greek and Turkish Cypriots swiftly collapsed.
More than 160,000 Greek Cypriots were driven south by Turkey in 1974 after the country annexed more than a third of the island.
Since then, Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines, with Greek and Turkish Cypriots residing on opposite sides of a border under UN supervision.
Turkey established the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983, a breakaway entity that is only acknowledged by Turkey.
Erdogan was present at a military procession in north Nicosia on Saturday, commemorating the day that Turkey began its invasion in 1974.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides declared on Saturday that reunification was the only choice, as Greek Cypriots grieved for the dead and those who remained missing since their departure in 1974.
After Greek Cypriots decisively rejected a UN plan to resolve their issues with Turkish Cypriots, a divided Cyprus became a member of the European Union in 2004.
However, Erdogan rejected the UN-supported federal model on Saturday, saying there was no need to reopen negotiations on the plan, on the other side of the buffer zone that divides the two settlements and is under UN control. The most recent UN-sponsored negotiations to unite the island broke down in 2017.
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