ΝΙCOSIA – The self-declared foreign chief of the Turkish-Cypriot occupied northern third of Cyprus said United Nations bias has prevented an answer to reach a settlement over the long divided island.

Talking to the Turkish new site TRT World, Tahsin Ertugruloglu said the the UN has failed for nearly half a century to get the two sides to reach an agreement that has been based on reunification.

“The UN is a disappointment,” he said. “Quite to the contrary, the UN is the problem itself,” he added, after the self-declared leader of the isolated side, Ersin Tatar, said he will accept only UN recognition, not reunification.

Ertugruloglu said the Greek-Cypriot government, that’s a member of the European Union, is recognized by the UN while the side taken by invasion isn’t, complaining that it’s not fair.

“They (the UN) are the ones who maintain the status quo. It is us who are constantly trying to change the status quo (based on) reality, not the myth of Cyprus,” Ertugruloglu said, an argument no country apart from Turkey accepts.

He said it’s only the Turkish-Cypriot side willing to compromise, apart from refusing to remove a 35,000-strong standing army, wanting the right to invade again and drill for oil and gas in Cypriot waters.

Ertugruloglu said Greek-Cypriot and Greek claims that the Cyprus problem began in 1974 because of Turkish intervention on the island are belied by the presence of UN peacekeeping forces since 1964.

“The wrong diagnosis of the international community,” he said, “is in dealing with the Greek-Cypriots as if they are the legitimate successors of what used to be a partnership between Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots.”