High Commission protests British channel calling Tatar ‘president of TRNC’

Cyprus’ High Commission in London has filed a complaint against a British news station, it emerged on Thursday, after the channel presented Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, as the ‘president of the TRNC’.

Tatar had been invited on the news channel GB News and on the programme of Martin Daubney, where he was called the ‘president’ of the breakaway regime.

Commenting on the matter to the Cyprus News Agency, foreign ministry spokesman Theodoros Gotsis said that as in all similar cases of the use of incorrect terminology that is adopted about the breakaway regime, the local diplomatic missions of Cyprus, and in this case the High Commission in London, is making the appropriate complaints to the media to prevent the use of such terminology in the future.

“Members of the journalistic community should be better informed to avoid the trap of using such illegal titles,” Gotsis said.

Tatar also spoke to the Times with journalist Dominic O’Connell, who at some points questioned the Turkish Cypriot leader’s words, such as on the issue of direct flights and trade, noting that any recognition of the north would set a dangerous precedent.

During the programme on Tuesday, Tatar told British television channel GB News Cypriot reunification is “absolutely impossible”.

Tatar told Daubney that instead of reunification, he had put forward a “new vision” for a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem.

“We have been governing ourselves as a de facto state for the last 60 years, and the Greek Cypriots have been doing the same. After all these years, reunification is absolutely impossible. There had been negotiations for a federal solution for 50 years. None of them led to a solution,” he said.