He will hold contacts in New York this monthTurkish Cypriot daily Gunes (13.09.11) reports that the Turkish Cypriot leader, Dervis Eroglu has said that the wish and the proposal of the Turkish Cypriot side on the issue of the citizenship in the ongoing Cyprus negotiations is for all the “citizens” of the “TRNC” [breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus], without any limits in numbers, to take the citizenship of the partnership state which will be established.

In statements yesterday at his office after his meeting with President Christofias within the framework of the Cyprus talks, Eroglu argued that their proposal is based on the view that no discrimination should be made among the “citizens”.

Eroglu announced also that he will visit New York to hold contacts on the Cyprus problem during the session of General Assembly of the United Nations, which will start on 19 September.

Eroglu said that during their six-hour meeting with President Christofias yesterday they discussed the issue of the citizenship, immigration and aliens under the chapter of Governance and Power Sharing.

Noting that the wish and the proposal of the Turkish Cypriot side is for all the “citizens” of the “TRNC”, as he described the illegal Turkish settlers, to become citizens of the common state, Eroglu said that they discussed this issue yesterday from 10.00 until 16.00 hours.

Eroglu noted that their meeting tomorrow Wednesday will start at 15.30 because President Christofias will have to attend a meeting of the Council of Ministers and added that the special representatives of the leaders will meet in the morning to continue the discussion of the chapter which was discussed yesterday.

Referring to the explorations for oil and natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea, Eroglu noted that the Greek Cypriot side did not give a positive answer to the proposal of the Turkish Cypriot side for postponing this exploration so that the negotiations and the efforts for finding a solution until October are not interrupted. Eroglu said that the Turkish side is serious in this proposal and if the Greek Cypriot side does not give a positive response, his special representative Kudret Ozersay will visit Ankara on Thursday accompanied by a delegation to make the necessary evaluations, discuss the situation and produce solutions jointly with Turkey. Eroglu noted that Ozersay will return to the island on the same day in order to participate in the meeting within the framework of the Cyprus talks on Friday.

Asked to comment on an instruction allegedly given by President Christofias’ to the National Guard to be on alert, Eroglu argued that “this behaviour was not pleasant”. Eroglu reiterated that he wishes for the Greek Cypriot side to accept the Turkish proposal and postpone the explorations for oil and natural gas.

Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot daily Ortam (13.09.11) refers to Eroglu’s proposal regarding the illegal Turkish settlers under the banner front-page title “Citizenship bomb”. The paper reports, inter alia, the following: “The new proposal of Eroglu on the issue of the citizenship eliminates the limit of ‘fifty thousand citizens’ which as it is known was accepted by the Greek Cypriot side until today. According to the new proposal, the Greek Cypriots have to accept ‘unlimited citizenship]'”.