SYRIZA, Greece’s main opposition party, has condemned recent comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan concerning the divided island of Cyprus, describing them as “provocative” and damaging to the “positive climate” in Turkish-Greek relations, the Greek Kathimerini newspaper reported.
Erdoğan made the controversial remarks during an iftar dinner on Monday during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan where he met with senior military commanders from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
In his comments Erdoğan defended a Turkish military operation on the island in 1974 and claimed that if Turkish forces had moved further south at the time, the island wouldn’t be divided between north and south and that the entire island might be Turkish today.
“Despite all the pressure, if it were not for Turkey’s intervention, neither the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus nor the Turkish Cypriots would exist today. In fact, perhaps if we had pushed south, and I say this as a son of the present, there would be no more north and south, and Cyprus would be completely ours,” Erdoğan said.
Cyprus, which joined the European Union in 2004, has been divided since Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the northern part of the island in response to a coup by Greek Cypriot nationalists who wanted to link the country to Greece.
The northern part of the island, with a majority of Turkish Cypriots and Turkish settlers, was self-proclaimed as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) in 1983.
SYRIZA — the Coalition of the Radical Left–Progressive Alliance — said in a statement on Tuesday that it “unequivocally condemns the latest provocative statements by the Turkish president about the Cyprus issue.”
“President Erdogan’s unconscionable statements clearly undermine the ‘positive climate’ in Greek-Turkish relations, which the [Kyriakos] Mitsotakis government complacently insists on. Just three months after the signing of the Athens Declaration, Turkey is once more violating its spirit and letter,” SYRIZA said in its statement, referring to a non-binding agreement signed between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Erdoğan in December to improve bilateral ties.
After years of tension over migration, energy rights and maritime borders in the Aegean Sea, Greece and Turkey restarted high-level talks in December when President Erdoğan paid his first to Athens since 2017 and signed a declaration of friendship between the two historic rivals.
SYRIZA, a center-left to left-wing political party founded in Greece in 2004, also called on the Greek government to respond to Erdoğan’s statement with the “necessary diplomatic actions” which would make it clear that “such unacceptable and inflammatory statements weigh against Greek-Turkish and Euro-Turkish relations.”
The party also accused Mitsotakis and his government of pursuing an “intransparent” foreign policy that systematically downgrades the Cyprus issue and fails to respond to Turkish provocations.
Meanwhile, Mitsotakis announced last week plans to visit Ankara in May in what would be seen as yet another step in reducing tensions between the two neighbors and NATO allies.