ZONGULDAK - TRNC State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Serdar Denktas said on Saturday that the Greek Cypriot side would be admitted to EU in the year 2004.
It was not possible to stop this process, said Serdar Denktas, adding but by doing that, the EU would confirm the division on the island.
Serdar Denktas who came to northern Zonguldak province, said that EU admitted a country which could not solve its internal and political problems and this was against EU's rules.
Serdar Denktas said that problem of TRNC was not the domestic problem of Turkey and it was a region and problem which Turkey had to intervene due to the rights stemming from international agreements and in that respect Turkey was treated unfairly.
''Despite that we will continue to search for solution of the problem. We believe that these efforts will intensify between December-May. But I don't know if we can reach a solution or not, because the Greek Cypriot side should also be as willing as us. I hope the press in Turkey can be aware of the things happening in Cyprus,'' Denktas said.
Serdar Denktas said regarding a news story about Cyprus that ''today the thing that was reflected to the press which wanted to be shown to the world by the opposition is as if we bring Turkish citizens to TRNC and give them citizenship. This is not the case. These are people who worked in TRNC for 5-10 years and who had earlier applied for citizenship. But the mistake of the government was that it could not give citizenship earlier and it approved this citizenship only a short time prior to the elections. This is the mistake. The number of these citizens is between 2,000-2,500. But the opposition which tries to show it differently, creates an image as if we import new persons from Turkey to win the elections.''
(ÖŞ) 12.10.2003