President Denktas yesterday (January 20) received the Head of the Guzelyurt Arts Association (GUSAD), Kemal Durust, and members of the Executive Committee.

Pointing out that in order to achieve reconciliation in Cyprus it was necessary for the two side’s to respect each others administrations, President Denktas said each side must reach a point that they would be satisfied with.

President Denktas said: "We should embrace and protect our country, cause, home and territory. It is a holy cause and has become more holy. Because they want to take our state, territory and homes away from us. They don’t accept our sovereignty. Each side should reach a point that they are satisfied with. The Greek Cypriots should understand that what they have been promised by their leaders will not be possible. If what the Greek Cypriot leaders promise is achieved, then this will only benefit the Greek Cypriots. This cannot be accepted by anyone. Both sides have to meet at a common point…"

Explaining that if reconciliation is to be achieved in Cyprus the reality of two peoples, democracies and states must be acknowledged, the President said, if there is to be a single state, the two states must give some concessions over their competences and establish a common state.

President Denktas stressed that acknowledgment of the two peoples’ sovereignty in Cyprus would open the way for reconciliation and that following the opening of the borders the Greek Cypriots saw the realities for themselves.

In order to meet with Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Denktas will go to Ankara on Saturday (January 24).

President Denktas said, apart from meeting Erdogan if he was to have other contacts he would stay in Ankara until Monday (Janaury 26), otherwise he would return to the TRNC on Sunday (January 25).

Meanwhile, Turkey’s National Security Council (MGK) will meet on Friday (January 23) in order to determine and clarify the stance to be adopted by Turkey during the Cyprus negotiation process.

The President of Pakistan, Pervez Muserref, stated that Pakistan favours settling the Cyprus issue through a bizonal and bicommunal settlement.

Speaking at the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s meeting, Muserref said Pakistan supported, to the very end, the Turkish Cypriot peoples just and legitimate struggle on the Cyprus issue, which is affecting the Muslim world. Muserref added that he believed the establishment of a secure environment between the two peoples living on the island was a precondition for settling the issue and that Pakistan the settlement of the Cyprus issue should be a bizonal, bicommunal settlement.

The TRNC New York Representative, Resat Caglar’s response to various speeches made by representatives of the Greek Cypriot Administration during various UN committee meetings has been published as a UN document.

Caglar, evaluating the statements made by Greek Cypriot representatives describing Turkey’s legitimate and justified 1974 intervention undertaken in accordance with the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee as "aggression" and "invasion" said such distortions were purely Greek Cypriot inventions aimed at blurring the issue and confusing the innocent with the guilty.

Recalling a statement made by Archbishop Makarios on 19 July, 1974, Caglar said in this statement, Makarios openly accused Greece, not Turkey, of invading and occupying Cyprus.

Explaining that the years 1963 to 1974 were a period in which the Greek Cypriots aided and abetted by Greece, practised ethnic cleansing, terrorism and tyranny against the Turkish Cypriots, all in the name of Enosis, Caglar said, the atrocities committed by the Greek Cypriots were reported in the 17 February 1964 issue of the Washington Post under the headline, "Greek Cypriot fanatics appear bent on a policy of genocide".

In his letter, Caglar stated that, in various statements made at the time by several prominent US officials they too had commented on what the Greek Cypriots had done and what they wanted to do.