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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will travel to northern Cyprus this Sunday and will also visit the city of Varosha. The old seaside resort was reopened in October after the Turkish army cordoned off the coastal town for decades.
The visit to Varosha takes place a few weeks after the presidential elections in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; the election was won by Ersin Tatar, a candidate supported by Erdogan.
Turkey has had the northern part of Cyprus under military occupation since 1974 and is the only country that recognizes the “Republic of Northern Cyprus” there. The army cordoned off Varosha after the Greek Cypriots fled there due to the Turkish invasion. However, the Greek Cypriots claim the place for themselves to this day.
Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades condemned Erdogan’s planned visit to Varosha as an “unprecedented provocation”.
Cyprus is a member of the European Union. Under international law, Northern Cyprus also belongs to Cyprus and therefore to the European Union.
Recently there have been repeated conflicts between Turkey and the EU. For example, Turkish fact-finding missions to explore natural gas fields, which according to maritime law belong to Greece and Cyprus, were controversial. Refugee policy also causes problems time and time again.
From the EU’s point of view, Turkey’s military engagement in the war in Syria and, more recently, in the Armenian-Azerbaijani war for Nagorno-Karabakh is also highly problematic. There are also frequent discussions about the precarious human rights situation in Turkey.
