President Ersin Tatar meets with Hissein Ibrahim Taha, Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in New York
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President Ersin Tatar has met with Hissein Ibrahim Taha, the Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as part of his visit to New York for the 78th session of the UN General Assembly.
The meeting, which was held at the headquarters of the UN, was also attended by OIC Deputy Secretary General Yousef Mohammed A. Aldobeay, Director General of Political Affairs Mohamed Salah Tekaya and Director of Asian Affairs Ahmed Sareer. Also in attendance were Minister of Foreign Affairs Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mustafa Lakadamyalı, New York Representative Mehmet Dana, Advisor Osman Ertuğ and First Secretary Çağrı Kalfaoğlu.
Emphasising that the TRNC was last year accepted under its constitutional name as an observer member at the Organisation of Turkic States, President Tatar said: “Our country is represented in the OIC under the name of Turkish Cypriot State as was the case in the UN Comprehensive Settlement [Annan] Plan of 2004, which never came to fruition because of the Greek Cypriot rejection of the solution plan in the separately held simultaneous referenda.” President Tatar made a request to Mr Taha for the TRNC to be represented in the OIC under its constitutional name as well.
Explaining the policy of the TRNC with regards to the Cyprus issue, President Tatar said: “The Turkish Cypriot People are co-founders of the partnership Republic of Cyprus established in 1960, who were expulsed from the state apparatus by the Greek Cypriot Side in 1963 and subjected to island-wide attacks from 1963 to 1974 under annihilation plans. The Turkish Cypriot People have inherent rights and are as sovereign as the Greek Cypriot People. Negotiations for a federal based settlement have been exhausted, and the unacceptable status-quo is not the fault of the Turkish Cypriot People."
President Tatar stated that “we are putting forward a policy and vision for a two State settlement in Cyprus, on the basis of the sovereign equality and equal international status of the two States, which is a realistic and sustainable basis”. He said the Turkish Cypriot Side has “not arrived at this point over night,” adding “numerous processes have failed decade after decade because of the Greek Cypriot Side’s unwillingness to share power and prosperity on the basis of equality with the Turkish Cypriot People, as seen more recently in the Annan Plan of 2004 and again in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in 2017”.