Provocative Bahçeli: “Cyprus is Turkish and will remain Turkish forever” – he calls federation a “raw fantasy” and the island the “strategic centre of the Blue Homeland”

Devlet Bahçeli, leader of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and a government partner of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Tuesday, October 20 attacked Nicosia and the idea of a federal solution to the Cyprus problem, in his speech at the party’s weekly parliamentary group meeting. The full text was published on the MHP’s official website.

“In Cyprus, which is the strategic centre of the Blue Homeland in Turkey’s security doctrine, we are closely watching the contacts of the representatives of the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus with the Greek Cypriot side,” Bahçeli said, referring to the breakaway entity by the name Ankara gives it. He added that in the Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus “provocations continue”.

The Turkish politician dwelt on reports about Varosha and the port of Famagusta: “The claims reflected in the Greek Cypriot press, which have not been denied, about handing the closed city of Famagusta (Varosha) over to United Nations administration and operating the port of Famagusta under European Commission supervision, present a serious picture for the sovereign rights of Turkish Cypriots.”

Nicosia an “Israeli outpost”

The harshest phrase followed: “The ‘United Cyprus Federation’ is a raw fantasy and a disaster for Turkish sovereignty.” Bahçeli accused the government of the Republic of Cyprus of having “taken on the mission of becoming Israel’s Cypriot outpost” and called on Turkish Cypriots to be “on alert”, concluding: “Cyprus has been Turkish for centuries and will remain Turkish forever!” The “Israeli outpost” line follows Ankara’s narrative, which presents Nicosia’s defence cooperation with Israel as a threat to Turkish interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In the same speech he accused Israel of “provocative and expansionist policies” and called for an end to Houthi attacks on civilians in Saudi Arabia. It is not the first time Bahçeli has raised the tone on Cyprus: a year ago he called for the occupied areas to be united with Turkey.

The legal record

Bahçeli’s claims run against the standing decisions of the UN Security Council. Resolution 541 (1983) declared the unilateral declaration of the “TRNC” legally invalid and called for its withdrawal, and Resolution 550 (1984) condemned attempts to settle any part of Varosha by people other than its inhabitants, calling for its transfer to UN administration. The Turkish invasion of 1974 and the continuing occupation of the northern part of the Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, are the root of the problem (see our explainer).

The speech comes days after Nicosia complained to the UN about 626 Turkish violations, and as Turkey shows through Libya that it continues to promote the Blue Homeland doctrine. The explicit linking of Cyprus to that doctrine by the second most powerful man in the governing alliance shows that Ankara treats the island as part of its naval strategy and not as a matter for negotiation.