President Ersin Tatar on Monday reiterated the importance of sovereign equality for the Turkish Cypriot people.

Tatar was speaking at the Anadolu University’s opening ceremony for the 2021-2022 academic year.

President Tatar was also bestowed an honorary doctorate by the university.

Addressing MPs, academic staff and students during the ceremony, the TRNC president presented a short summary of the island’s history, starting from the Ottoman conquest of 1571.

He said that attempts to usurp the rights of the island’s Turkish Cypriot population had begun when the island was rented out to Great Britain in 1878.

Underlining the importance of the 1960 treaties, Tatar pointed out that an extraordinary effort had been made to unite the island with Greece at the time.

“These treaties are important because our claims for sovereignty emanate from these agreements. The two sovereign peoples of the island had handed over their sovereignty for the creation of the partnership republic,” he said.

Tatar added that never in the history of Cyprus had the island fallen under Greek or Greek Cypriot administration.

“The late Greek Cypriot Archbishop Makarios however had agreed to the 1960 Republic to use it as a stepping stone to achieve ENOSIS or union with Greece,” he said.

President Ersin Tatar also said that Turkish Cypriots had no intention or desire to return to pre-1974 conditions.

He pointed out that the Greek-Greek Cypriot duo was constantly attempting to portray Turkey as an occupier in Cyprus and seeking grounds for a federal settlement despite the fact that a two-state structure has existed on the island since 1974.

Tatar reminded that Turkish Cypriots who had voted in favour of the 2004 UN-sponsored Annan Plan continued to be punished whilst the Greek Cypriots who had rejected the plan had been allowed to join the EU.

He added that the goal of a federal settlement under the umbrella of the EU was to slowly push Turkey out of Cyprus.

He said that the Greek Cypriot side’s demand for zero troops and zero guarantees as envisaged in a federal settlement will push Turkish Cypriots to where they were even before the 1960 partnership republic.

“These attempts are aimed at transforming the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean into a Greek lake. We must stand strong against such attempts and maintain our position,” he said.