Turkey is ready to build a military base in northern Cyprus "if necessary," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, the official Anadolu news agency reported.
"If necessary, we can build a base and naval structures in the north. We also have the sea," said the Turkish president on the plane on his way back from Cyprus, where he attended the ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the intervention of the Turkish army yesterday. He accused Greece of wanting to establish such a base on the divided Mediterranean island.
"We are building the presidency building (of the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) and the parliament building on the island. They are building a military base, and we are building a political base," Erdogan said.
In 1983, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was proclaimed in the northern part of Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey.
The Turkish head of state once again ruled out any possibility of continuing international negotiations on the future of Cyprus, considering that the only possible way is to directly negotiate with the Greek Cypriots, on an equal basis.
"We honestly don't think it's possible to start a new negotiation process without establishing an equation where the two sides sit at the table as equals and leave it as equals," Erdogan said.
The island of Cyprus has been divided since Turkey seized the northern part of the island on July 20, 1974, in response to a coup by nationalist Greek Cypriots who wanted to annex it to distant Greece.
The Republic of Cyprus, the only internationally recognized one, exercises power only on the southern part of the island divided by a buffer zone under the control of the United Nations, from the northern part of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, self-proclaimed and recognized only by Ankara.
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