Denktas Says He Is Pleased With His Contacts In Paris

ISTANBUL - Rauf Denktas, the President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) said on Saturday that he is pleased with his contacts in Paris, adding that ''I can say with pleasure that Clerides has not claimed there that he was the government of the Turkish Cypriots and Clerides added that he would do his best to set up a joint government.''
Denktas came to Istanbul from Paris the same day.
Speaking at Ataturk Airport, Denktas said that they had a mutual-assessment meeting with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. ''We are pleased with our contacts. We had the opportunity to explain Annan the difficulties we face and all the realities for the second time.''
Denktas stressed that Turkish Cypriots wanted equal treatment of both sides, end of pressure and it has to be clearly told to the Greek Cypriots that they are not the government of the Turkish side.
''We stressed that we are ready to make an agreement based on two sovereignities. We took great steps to this end. But there is only one state in Turkish Cypriot side and this state has one sovereignty. It is not possible to reach an agreement by telling it that certain rights would be given to this state by preparing a new constitution and saying that these rights would be very nice on the paper. I suppose U.N. Secretary General will assess these. We will review the things done with Alvaro De Soto within the coming 3-4 weeks and we will come together with U.N. Secretary General again by going to New York in the beginning of October,'' he said.
Denktas stressed that the Cyprus issue is not an impediment for Turkey to join the EU, adding that this issue is the national cause of Turkey. ''Turkey can't give up defending the Cyprus issue due to any reason,'' he said.
When asked what would happen if the Greek Cypriot side is accepted to the EU as a member without solution of the Cyprus problem, Denktas said that ''this will be great irresponsibility for the EU. EU will make a great mistake if it accepts the Greek Cypriot side which imposes embargo on the Turkish Cypriot side, which isolates it from its budget, which denied its constitution; as a country which abides by the EU criteria. EU can't ignore the fact that the island is divided into two, it is under the supervision of the U.N., and U.N. soldiers stand guard there. Representatives of many EU countries started to think about this issue very deeply. They tell this to us...There are even ones who tell us that 'we made a big mistake, how will we get out of this, help us.' We are ready to help, but not at the cost of our sovereignty, equality and state.''