Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman said the military alliances and agreements pursued by the Republic of Cyprus amount to an unrealistic attempt to create a military counterweight to Turkey. In a social media post on Sunday, he said such moves put the island’s security at risk and also draw the Turkish Cypriot community into situations to which it has not given its consent.
Referring to the wider military activity on the island, Erhürman argued that these actions threatened Cyprus’s security and affected the Turkish Cypriot side as well, despite its lack of consent.
He also focused on the impact of militarisation on tourism and the economy. Commenting on concerns over the effect of regional conflict on tourism in Cyprus, and on foreign media reports portraying the island as an unsafe destination, Erhürman said that the outcome was to be expected.
He referred to the presence of military assets from Greece, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, as well as the British bases and the Andreas Papandreou air base, and said international media reporting could not be criticised under those conditions.
Erhürman also referred to an article by Niyazi Kizilyurek, which cited an older speech by former Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras in the Greek parliament. According to that reference, Samaras had said that if the Annan Plan had been implemented, it would have been impossible for Greece to send warships and aircraft to the island.
In his closing remarks, Erhürman said the island lies in a particularly vulnerable region and that Turkish Cypriots do not want to bear the consequences of mistakes in which they had no involvement. He expressed hope for an immediate end to the war in the region and argued that lasting peace and stability in both the eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus could not be secured if the will of the Turkish Cypriot side was ignored.