Ankara is working with its allies in the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to make a case for a two-state solution in the leadup to a UN-sponsored summit scheduled for early March on the divided Eastern Mediterranean island. 

“We will enter into a deal as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and not as the Turkish Cypriot community,” Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertugruloglu told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview. “The road to a settlement passes through the recognition that there are two separate states on the island of Cyprus.”

The two-state solution has been heavily promoted since the election of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ally Ersin Tatar as president of Northern Cyprus last year. The island is at the center of ongoing maritime disputes in the eastern Mediterranean Sea over exclusive economic zones and potential gas reserves. 

Greece and Turkey are two guarantor powers of the island along with the United Kingdom under a constitution that granted Cyprus independence in 1960 from colonial rule by Britain. Athens has been on the front lines of Turkey’s deteriorating relations with the West and the two NATO allies have engaged in heated sparring over maritime disputes.