Physical Address
Indirizzo: Via Mario Greco 60, Buttigliera Alta, 10090, Torino, Italy
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli said on Tuesday that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) should hold a parliamentary vote to join Türkiye, two days after Turkish Cypriots elected a candidate in favor of restarting talks with Greek Cypriots.
Bahçeli, during his party’s parliamentary group meeting in Ankara, dismissed calls for a federal solution on the ethnically split island and said, “Cyprus is Turkish and the homeland of Turks.”
“The TRNC Parliament must decide to join the Republic of Türkiye,” said.
“The fate of Turkish Cypriots cannot be represented through this level of participation,” he said of Sunday’s vote. “There is no validity or future for federation proposals. Cyprus is our national cause and there is absolutely no turning back from this just cause.”
Centre-left politician Tufan Erhürman won a landslide victory over former President Ersin Tatar during Sunday’s elections.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan congratulated the new leader following the election, but Bahçeli’s comments highlight the nationalist bloc’s push for closer political and territorial alignment with Ankara.
The Turkish main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which enjoys close ties with Erhürman’s CTP, also lauded the election results.
Bahçeli added that the number of voters has been 218,313, while voter turnout has been 62.83%.
“It has become a matter of life and death that the TRNC becomes the 82nd province after Düzce. When we look at Cyprus, we see our nation,” he continued. “The security and future of Cyprus is the same as that of Türkiye’s.”
He reminded that a two-state solution based on sovereign equality is a must and that choosing a federation solution means subjecting Turkish Cypriots to assimilation.
The island has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the U.N. to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety. In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece’s annexation led to Türkiye’s military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence.
As a result, the TRNC was founded in 1983. The country is fully recognized only by Türkiye, which does not recognize the Greek Cypriot administration in the south.
The island has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, but negotiations have been stalled since 2017. Erhürman advocates resumption of the formal negotiations with the Greek Cypriot side. Tatar repeatedly met with Greek Cypriot leaders in informal talks brokered by the U.N., but those negotiations did not yield any concrete results for the final status of Cyprus.
Terror-free initiative
On the terror-free Türkiye process, Bahçeli said, “My Kurdish brothers played a fundamental role in the founding of the Republic of Türkiye and they were certainly not ignored in the years that followed. He who ignores the Kurds will ignore the nation.”
“The terrorist organization dissolved itself. Imralı has kept his promise,” he added. “Now, all affiliates of the organization must burn their weapons or leave weapons.
“In Syria, the negotiations regarding the integration process of the SDF/YPG into the central government and the positive progress of the negotiation stages are at the top of the hot agenda,” Bahçeli said.
“A terror-free Türkiye will lead to a terror-free region,” he added.
The terror-free Türkiye initiative was launched last year by government ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) when its leader, Devlet Bahçeli, implied that the government should facilitate access to the terrorist group PKK’s jailed ringleader, Abdullah Öcalan, so that he could call on the PKK to lay down arms. Bahçeli’s proposal was endorsed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had earlier hinted at the initiative with messages of unity between Turks and Kurds. The PKK has long justified its campaign of terrorism as a fight for the rights of Kurds. Both Bahçeli and Erdoğan repeatedly said that ending terrorism and maintaining unity were essential for Türkiye’s “home front” in the face of Israeli aggression in the region, pointing to the fact that Israel may target Türkiye next as part of its expansionist policies. Öcalan responded positively to Bahçeli’s call and urged the PKK to lay down arms. In July, the PKK started the disarmament process with a ceremony in northern Iraq. The complete disarmament of the group is expected to be concluded by the end of 2025.
