Mehmet Ali Talat - Political Career in The TRNC

Political Career in The TRNC

Talat was the Minister of Education and Culture in the first coalition government formed by the RTP-Democrat Party (DP) Alliance after the general elections of December 1993. He undertook the same post in the second DP-RTP coalition government, and became the Minister of State and Deputy Prime Minister in the third DP-RTP coalition government.

Talat was elected as the leader of the RTP on 14 January 1996, succeeding Özker Özgür. After being elected to the TRNC parliament on 14 December 2003, Talat formed another RTP-DP coalition government on 13 January 2004, at the behest of the then-TRNC President Rauf Denktaş, when the incumbent Prime minister Derviş Eroğlu was unable to do so.

Winning a victory in the 20 February 2005 general elections, Talat formed the second RTP-DP coalition, serving as Prime Minister until his election as the second TRNC President on 17 April 2005, when he asked RTP Deputy Leader Ferdi Sabit Soyer to form a new government.

During the 2004 referendum on the Annan Plan to extinguish the Republic of Cyprus through the formation of loose confederation along ethnic division in advance of its entry to the European Union, Talat promoted a 'Yes' vote among Turkish Cypriots and the plan received overwhelming endorsement north of the Green Line. However, Tassos Papadopoulos, the then President of the Republic of Cyprus, opposed the plan and the Greek Cypriot community rejected it by a large majority opting for an as yet undefined constitution along the EU norms principles such as universal suffrage. As a consequence, the plan was dropped, but the EU declared it would seek to implement trade concessions and other measures designed to alleviate the isolation of Northern Cyprus as a reward for the Turkish Cypriot referendum result. Talat remained publicly committed to reunification. However the pro-solutionist side and Mehmet Al Talat lost momentum, because of the ongoing embargo and isolation, despite promises from the European Union of easing them, which did not occur, and as a result the Turkish Cypriot electorate became frustrated. This led ultimately to the pro-independence side winning the general elections in 2009 and its candidate, former Prime Minister Derviş Eroğlu winning the presidential elections in 2010. Although his side and he himself disagrees with and opposes re-unification with the Republic of Cyprus, and favours the unity of and close relations between northern Cyprus and Turkey and supports the independence of the former, he nevertheless is negotiating with the Greek Cypriot side towards a settlement for reunification, to establish a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation in Cyprus, based on the political equality of the two communities, single sovereignty, single citizenship and international identity.