Turkish troops must leave northern Cyprus immediately: Greek FM

Greece’s Foreign Minister has called for Turkish troops to begin the process of leaving Cyprus, during an interview with Greek media on Sunday.

“The Turkish occupation troops must leave from Cyprus, because, for practical reasons, the troops can’t leave in a single day, the largest part of the Turkish army should leave immediately and the withdrawal of the rest of the troops to take place in a specific period and to have a deadline”, said Nikos Kotzias, noting also recent government discussions with Turkish officials in New York.

“We have not agreed but during the meeting with Turkish President Erdogan in New York we said to meet soon to discuss it. I have prepared a report on these issues and Cyprus’ government agrees and this is the course we will follow because the Turkish-Cypriots will have immediate benefits from the unification and development of Cyprus Republic but we can’t say the same for the Greek -Cypriots which are the withdrawal of the occupation troops, the return of the land and the agreements that will exist in the inner aspects.”

Kotzias also referred to the meeting between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying they discussed some parameters for a potential solution to the crisis and stressing the importance of Greece, Turkey and the EU in ensuring the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement.

On the issue of FYROM, Kotzias suggested that deliberations on the ‘name’ of the former Yugoslav state will begin after the latter has had their general elections, with the assistance of course of UN mediator Matthew Nimetz.