The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) Zorlu Töre said that there are two equally sovereign states in Cyprus and that it is out of the question for the Turkish Cypriot side to accept anything other than a two-state solution.

Töre who is currently holding contacts in the Turkish capital, received a Certificate of Friendship from the Ankara University.

Delivering a speech at the ceremony, Parliamentary Speaker Zorlu Töre gave a short presentation on the history of the Cyprus Issue starting from the island’s Ottoman rule to the 1974 Turkish Peace Operation.

Pointing out that the west desired to see the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus, the scrapping of the system of guarantees and to dissolve the TRNC, Töre said that the same countries were opposed to Türkiye carrying out hydrocarbon exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean.

“The US from across the ocean, France and the UK all see it their right to be present in the Eastern Mediterranean. But right in the centre of the Eastern Mediterranean is the TRNC. Türkiye on the other hand is the region’s largest and most powerful country with the longest coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean. And they want to exclude Türkiye, dissolve the TRNC and unite Cyprus. What they want is to take us back to how things were in the past. This is not acceptable,” he said.

Töre said that the Turkish Cypriot people do not accept the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus, the ending of the system of guarantees and abandoning their state.