N. Cyprus To Convey At UN Talks Its Desire For Sovereign Equality - President

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2021) Northern Cyprus will convey at the upcoming UN trilateral meeting that it seeks sovereign equality with the Cypriot state with which it shares the island, President Ersin Tatar told Sputnik.

"I hope to be able to express my opinion, I hope to express my position," Tatar said. "My position - we want our Sovereign Equality... as you call Greek Cypriots, we don't believe that they're the majority, we are not a minority. We are one of the two peoples."

Tatar noted that the meeting will take place at the UN Headquarters in New York and will be attended by Nicos Anastasiades, president of Cyprus, him and the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"I'm all for meetings... I want to have meetings. I want to be able to express my feelings, my opinion, the expectation of my people. I'm here to meet people and to discuss, to tell them our point of view," he said.

Anastasiades said on Wednesday that his informal meeting with Tatar and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be held on September 27.

Since 1974, Cyprus has been divided into the internationally-recognized Republic of Cyprus and the separatist Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), when Turkey invaded and occupied over 30% of the island. The UN has attempted brokering reunification talks in April, but the negotiation reached a dead end in June.

In July, the self-proclaimed TRNC, backed by Ankara, unilaterally demilitarized the UN-protected quarter of Varosha, a town in the buffer zone that separates the Greek and Turkish communities on the island. The UN Security Council condemned the move, saying it violates all previous UN resolutions on Cyprus.