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ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused United Nations peacekeepers of instigating violence in which several members of the agency’s mission were assaulted on Cyprus.
The United Nations said Turkish Cypriot forces on Friday attacked peacekeepers who were attempting to block construction of a road in the buffer zone separating the divided east Mediterranean island.
The confrontation occurred in an ethnically mixed village in the UN-patrolled area between the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus in the south and the breakaway Turkish Cypriot statelet in the north.
The breakaway government is recognised internationally only by Turkiye. Erdogan accused the UN force of illegally moving into Turkish Cypriot territory to halt the construction of the road. “The physical intervention of the UN forces on the territory of [northern Cyprus] last Friday is unacceptable,” Erdogan said in his first public remarks about one of the most serious incidents of its kind on the island in years.