Cyprus Mail 9 September 2025 - by Tom Cleaver
Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Tuesday night issued a 1,000-word statement – his second of this year’s election campaign so far – criticising efforts towards a federal solution to the Cyprus problem and warning of “owners of villas with pools”.
He began his statement by saying that “the owners of villas with pools from 2004 are on duty”, with 2004 having been the year in which the Annan plan referendum was held.
“As a Turkish Cypriot, I have witnessed the suffering, resistance, and sacrifices my people have endured throughout my whole life. From my childhood onward, I have seen that the Turkish Cypriot people have been waging a fight to exist on this island for over a century. Each generation has done its bit,” he said.
He added, “our people were driven from their villages and homes, lost loved ones, and were forced to live in poverty and destitution, under siege by armed gangs, but they never lost one thing: our will to live with dignity and freedom”
To this end, he said, “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is the embodiment of this resistance, this patience, and this determination”.
“The TRNC is not just a state, it is the symbol and the most concrete expression of our people’s will to exist, their right to independence and sovereignty, and their demand for equality and freedom,” he said.
As such, he decried his opposition-backed opponent Tufan Erhurman’s plans to return to negotiations based on a federal solution to the Cyprus problem, saying that “for decades, after usurping the Republic of Cyprus, the Greek Cypriot side has repeatedly used the rhetoric of federation as a mask in the international arena”.
“For years, negotiations were held under the guise of federation, hopes were pinned on them, and well-intentioned initiatives were made. However, it has always been clear that, for the Greek Cypriot side, a federation is not a true solution, but a tool for perpetuating the deadlock and maintaining the status quo they unjustly and unlawfully brought into existence,” he said.
He added that the current status quo on the island “only benefits” the Greek Cypriots and said that “the federation model is a continuation of the current status quo and a complete deception”.
“Federation means reducing Turkish Cypriots back to a minority. It means eliminating our sovereignty, destroying our own state, and placing our people under Greek Cypriot rule,” he said.
He then added that a federal solution would also mean “ceding a quarter of the TRNC’s territory to the Greek Cypriot side”.
“This is not just a loss of territory; it is a surrender of our people’s security and freedom,” he said.
He also criticised the Greek Cypriot side’s position that there should be “zero troops and zero guarantees” on the island, saying that in this scenario, “the Republic of Turkey’s right to act as a guarantor would be completely eliminated”.
“We all know that history has recorded what was done to the Turkish Cypriots between 1963 and 1974 when there were no Turkish soldiers present. They want us to be left defenceless again in these lands and to be separated from our homeland,” he said.
He then turned his attention to Erhurman, saying that his opponent is “trying to sell a new illusion every day” by calling for a return to negotiations based on a federal solution to the Cyprus problem.
“This policy, designed to deceive our people, works as follows. They choose an area where we are victims and it is entirely the work of the Greek Cypriot side. Then, they examine how many people it affects, and if they find it useful, they use rhetoric blaming the state in which they live to propagate the idea that they will fix it,” he said.
He added that he has “been in politics for many years” and said, “I have seen many elections, but I have never seen an election campaign so openly based on deceiving our people” as that conducted by Erhurman this time around.
“Saying you want a federation essentially means you will give the Greek Cypriots what they want. This means, most clearly, that we will have to back down from our positions at the Annan Plan and at Crans Montana, which were already loaded with heavy concessions,” he said.
It was at this point that he returned to the matter of villas and pools, saying that Erhurman is “running a so-called campaign based on deceiving our citizens of Turkish origin”.
“Coming from a tradition of villas with pools, the esteemed candidate has become so arrogant that he is even promising Greek Cypriot identity cards and passports to our citizens of Turkish origin, whom the Greek Cypriot administration insults and ignores almost daily,” he said.
In this, he was referring to people born to “mixed marriages”, in which one of their parents is a Turkish Cypriot and the other is a third country national, typically Turkish, and they are denied citizenship as the Republic of Cyprus maintains that the non-Cypriot parent was in Cyprus illegally, having entered the north after 1974.
“Those with nothing to say, no vision to offer, and no political success whatsoever can only fabricate promises designed to deceive our people,” he said.
He said a two-state solution “is not only a political choice, but also a necessity for the security and future of our people”.
“I, Ersin Tatar, am committed to the will of the people I represent. This will is our people’s determination to live freely, independently, and sovereignly. We are aware of the injustices, embargoes, and isolation we face internationally today. Yet, despite this, we stand firm. Because we know that right is might,” he said.
