NICOSIA – A statement by US Sen. Robert Menendez that Turkish-Cypriots are occupying the northern third of the island seized in unlawful 1974 invasions has brought a fiery riposte and also blamed Greek-Cypriots.

Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said the New Jersey Democrat who is a long-time friend of Greece and Cyprus made his comments during an online event organized by the Coordinating Committee of the Cyprus Struggle (PSEKA) on the 39^th anniversary of a self-declared Turkish republic no other country apart from Turkey recognizes.

Turkish-Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar has demanded recognition for the occupied territory and not reunification, which has been the goal of diplomats for decades, and said that Menendez made the claim “with a pro-Greek attitude,” the report said.

“The chairperson of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the whole world should know very well that the occupier who exists in Cyprus is the Greek-Greek Cypriot duo who turned the Republic of Cyprus, in which the Turkish Cypriot people are equal founding partners, into a Greek state by force of arms, and this occupation still continues,” Tatar said.

Menendez was also a driving force to get the United States to lift an arms embargo for the legitimate Greek-Cypriot government that’s a member of the European Union but not NATO.