The EU has rebuked Turkey for excluding Cyprus from COP31 preparatory meetings, with climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra warning that all 27 member states must be treated equally and that the bloc would not accept Ankara’s behaviour.
At a meeting of EU climate ministers on Thursday, Cyprus said it had not been invited by Turkey to two preparatory meetings for COP31, to be held in November, in New York and Tokyo.
Hoekstra said he had communicated to the UN and Turkey’s EU embassy that excluding Cyprus was unacceptable and that the bloc’s full solidarity would apply across all 26 other member states.
“There are 27 member states that need to be treated in the same way,” he told a press conference on Thursday. “This is a Union of 27, full stop.”
Turkey does not recognise the Greek Cypriot government and is the only country in the world to recognise the breakaway Turkish Cypriot administration in the north of the island. Ankara has said Cyprus was invited to all COP31-related events coordinated by the UN, including meetings in Bonn and Petersburg, but not to events organised by Turkey independently at a national level, such as a Zero Waste event in New York.
A Turkish diplomatic source said the contacts and meetings conducted by Turkey ahead of COP31 were national-level events organised for preparation, consultation and promotion purposes, and that the official invitation process for the COP31 Leaders’ Summit had not yet begun and no invitations had been sent to any party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Cyprus is also concerned it will be excluded from the Leaders’ Summit at COP31, which Turkey as host would organise, environment minister Maria Panayiotou said. If that happens, some EU countries may consider skipping the summit in solidarity.
“If Cyprus is unfairly treated… we should not be going to Turkey,” said Poland’s deputy climate minister Krzysztof Bolesta.
Irish climate minister Darragh O’Brien said the situation could be resolved through dialogue. “Full solidarity with Cyprus. This situation doesn’t need to escalate,” he told Reuters.
Turkey will host COP31 while Australia will run the UN negotiations at the centre of the conference, an unusual arrangement agreed after both countries bid to host it. Turkey cannot exclude any country from the UN negotiations themselves, but Ankara is preparing a series of side events and deals at the summit.
Cyprus currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, which involves coordinating EU countries’ COP31 preparations, until Ireland takes over the role next month.
(With information from Reuters)
Read more: