Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar has put the lid on hopes the UN-brokered talks aiming to reunite divided Cyprus could soon be relaunched through a reply letter to the Cyprus President dated June 20.
In the letter, published in full by daily Phileleftheros on Thursday (read it below), Tatar tells President Nicos Anastasiades that the internationally-supported basis of the negotiations is now “exhausted” and no longer “valid”.
The UN process aims to reunite the island, divided since a 1974 invasion by Turkey which still maintains troops in the breakaway north, provides for a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal system.
But the Turkish side now insists on a two-state solution which is not accepted by either the EU-member Cyprus Republic nor the bloc or the international community.
This is Tatar’s response to the letter sent to him by Anastasiades on May 20:
