TRNC celebrates 42nd anniversary of Proclamation Day
Representative of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in Pakistan, Ms Buket Kop Friday evening hosted a reception to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of the proclamation of the TRNC.
The event organized at the Marriott Hotel saw in attendance noted guests and important personalities of the twin cities including, parliamentarian, diplomats, business community, members of academia and civil society. Prominent among the guests were Senator Sitara Ayaz, Senator Sehar Kamran, Ambassador of Turkiye Irfan Neziroglu, Ambassador of Azerbaijan Khazar Farhadov, Ambassador of Kazakhstan Yerzhan Kistafin, Ambassador of Sudan, Salih Mohamed Ahmed Siddig; Uzbekistan ambassador Alisher Tukhtaev, Pakistani Hindu community leader, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, former Senator Saleem Saifullah Khan and a good number of the Turkish and the TRNC nationals.
They congratulated Ambassador Kop and the TRNC citizens on the memorable occasion. At the start of the national day of the TRNC, national anthems of the two countries were played and a cake was also cut.
In her address, Amb Buket Kop briefed the guests about the substantial progress the island has achieved in various domains including democracy, economy, social equality and human rights (HR). Established in 1983, the TRNC has remained steadfast in preserving peace and stability on the island, supported by Turkiye, she said. She also gave a background of the TRNC citizens’ just and long struggle for recognition as a sovereign nation. She recalled that the Republic of Cyprus was established as a partnership between the Turkish Cyprus and the Greek Cyprus in 1960. Its legitimacy depended on the joint participation and equal representation, however, that partnership lasted only for three years and in 1963 the Greek Cyprus side attempted to alter the constitution and to strip the people of the Turkish Cyprus of their cofounder status and reduced them to a minority. “This led to the collapse of the partnership and expulsion of the Turkish Cypriots from all state institutions,” she said.
Despite the fact the people of TRNC have a distinct sovereign status, the international community has not recognized them as a separate nation, she said.
The root cause of the Cyprus issue, she said, was the problem of status, she said explaining that the Greek Cyprus administration was acknowledged the international community and recognized as the sole representative of the island while the Turkish Cyprus people were just an isolated and unrecognized community, she said. This imbalance has created a comfort zone for the Greek Cyprus side which continues to obstruct all efforts towards a just and lasting solution. Time has now come to adopt a new approach one that reflects the realities on the ground, she said and quoted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkiye who in his address at the 79th UN General Assembly called upon the international community to recognize the citizens of TRNC as an independent sovereign nation. Turkish President has time and again taken up the TRNC case before the international community calling upon them to acknowledge the realities on ground. President Erdogan emphasized that Cyprus was home to two states and two peoples and that the Turkish Cyprus would not accept a minority status. Ambassador Buket Kop said that as an observer member of the Organization of Islamic Countries as well as Economic Cooperation Organization, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus lately joined hands and hearts with the Organization of Turkic States in 2022, which is a rising international actor, she said.
