Articals and Comments 

Archive

By James Morrison
The Washington Times, 26^th September 2003
Embassy Row

The foreign minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is confident of victory for the ruling party in the December elections, despite a united political opposition that favours a U.N.-sponsored settlement with the Greek-Cypriot part of the island.

Tahsin Ertugruloglu dismissed suggestions that the "opposition will win and oust President [Rauf] Denktash, and we will accept the [U.N.] plan and be merrily on our way."

Mr. Ertugruloglu, on a D.C. visit this week, said the opposition is "hopeless" in its pursuit of a settlement, although some opinion polls predict the opposition will win 60 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections. Mr. Denktash said he rejected the U.N. plan because it called for too many concessions on the part of Turkish Cypriots and refused to recognize the independence of the TRNC, which has diplomatic relations only with Turkey.

Mr. Ertugruloglu said the U.N. plan would require the TRNC to give up too much land and offered too few security guarantees to Turkish Cypriots, many of whom still remember the ethnic violence of the 1960s.

"What the opposition fails to recognize is the characteristic of the Turkish Cypriot people," Mr. Ertugruloglu said. "They are not going to give up on their statehood.

"This is where [the opposition] is off track," he added. "This is where they are hopeless."