Hardline Turkish-Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar said if Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan loses May 14 elections and a new administration won’t support his demand for two separate states on the island that he’ll resign.

After winning office in October, 2020 in beating the moderate incumbent, Mustafa Akinci, a new line was drawn by Tatar – rejecting reunification talks that have failed for decades and demanding the United Nations and world recognize the occupied northern third of the island.

The legitimate Greek-Cypriot government is a member of the European Union that Turkey has been trying fruitlessly to join since 2005 and Tatar said the only solution to end the stalemate is permanent partition and acceptance of a self-declared Turkish-Cypriot republic.

While he said he thought it unlikely that a new leader in Turkey would instead prefer to keep trying reunification, he said if that stance is taken that he won’t stay in office and will quit, The Cyprus Mail reported that he said.

https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/03/22/tatar-threatens-resignation-if-turkey-changes-course/

On his refusal to revise his two-state policy, Tatar stated “that’s how I was born and that’s how I’ll die, I can’t follow a zig-zag line,” and that he would go back to Kanal T, the TV station his family owns if he leaves office.

“I’ll sit there, living proudly – I’m not one to change and neither does it suit me,” he said, although the UN has ignored his demands and Cyprus’ new President Nicos Christodoulides wants a bizonal, bicommunal federation along UN guidelines.