Talk of Trump intervening on Cyprus problem ‘a rumour’, Erhurman says

Talk of United States President Donald Trump intervening on the Cyprus problem is nothing more than “a rumour”, Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman said.

“We have not received anything officially. I do not think these statements very accurate,” he told television channel Kanal Sim.

However, he did note that “in the current conjuncture, it has become even more intenational”, and that “it is common knowledge that regional and international powers other than [the island’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom] are also present somewhere around the table”.

“Approaches which state that the problem is being solved from the outside are not correct. We hear the rumours, but there is no such situation in official contacts,” he said.

The comment comes after President Nikos Christodoulides had said in October that he had discussed the Cyprus problem with Trump on the sidelines of the summit on the future of Gaza in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

Asked what was discussed between him and Trump, he replied that “all I can say is that the issue discussed was the Cyprus issue”.

Earlier, Turkish opposition political party CHP leader Ozgur Ozel had alleged that the status of Cyprus was a key part of a deal brokered by Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to allow the latter to arrest Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.

He referred to the arrest of Imamoglu, the man his party has since chosen to stand in the next Turkish presidential election, as a “coup d’état”, and said that “Recep Tayyip Erdogan received the permission for the March 19 coup d’état from Trump”, with Imamoglu having been arrested on March 19 last year.

“The March 19 coup d’état was carried out with the support of the US. After the March 19 coup d’état, the Cyprus case was abandoned, in return for [the US] remaining silent about the March 19 coup d’état,” he said.

“No voice was raised when the Turkic republics recognised southern Cyprus,” he said, in reference to a joint declaration signed by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and non-Turkic Tajikistan with the European Union last year which ruled out the prospect of any of them recognising the north as an independent country.

As such, he said, “northern Cyprus was isolated, and what they called the ‘baby homeland’, to us, the ‘brother homeland’, was sold by the AK Party”.

Erdogan’s AK Party’s spokesman Omer Celik denied the accusations, describing them as “both a political lie and political incompetence”.

He added, “Ozgur Ozel’s questioning of our president’s sensitivity regarding the Turkish Cypriot cause and the TRNC is nothing but political ignorance”.

“Both our nation and the international community are well aware of our president’s sensitivity regarding the Turkish Cypriot cause and the TRNC.”