tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76140361715630703692024-01-06T16:02:37.505+03:00ESRA AYGIN News, interviews and opinions on Cyprus peace process Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.comBlogger386125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-1614268760163780852024-01-06T16:01:00.005+03:002024-01-06T16:01:42.474+03:00Crime heaven: corruption ‘worsening’ in north<p><b>By Esra Aygin </b></p><p><b>1 January 2024 </b></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgG3vOgaE8JvVUHestF-EOxWfKnlnixELjH3J9MGIEsYDGZGzcZEll_oZDVEx9NyQ35mg7V2oPx5mwmYo8tZsYJrZtkNtmqi9Vc5eNWTOoNShtVFbKe6OoC9H-mCzrGVQnfEo13KbA12xugz-uZOo5zrNxKuzjuTSj-oz2umMs0ryQw3GGhcbkiGeSZvk" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgG3vOgaE8JvVUHestF-EOxWfKnlnixELjH3J9MGIEsYDGZGzcZEll_oZDVEx9NyQ35mg7V2oPx5mwmYo8tZsYJrZtkNtmqi9Vc5eNWTOoNShtVFbKe6OoC9H-mCzrGVQnfEo13KbA12xugz-uZOo5zrNxKuzjuTSj-oz2umMs0ryQw3GGhcbkiGeSZvk" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Former Turkish vice president Fuat Oktay with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar</b></span><p></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p><b><i>‘Deterioration in terms of corruption has been evident in our reports’</i></b></p><p>Multiple bribery allegations surfacing over the past week involving senior Turkish and Turkish Cypriot officials have shaken the northern part of Cyprus and raised important concerns about the prevalence of corruption.</p><p>The first, which may indicate connections between politicians and mafia, involves former Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay. Voice recordings published by Turkish investigative journalist in exile Cevheri Guven suggest that Oktay received $50 million (about €45 million) in bribes from the wife of gunned-down Turkish Cypriot mafia boss Halil Falyali.</p><p>According to the audio published on YouTube, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar acted as a mediator along with a Turkish journalist Alihan Pehlivan in organising and coordinating the bribery.</p><p>The voice in the damning audio allegedly belongs to Falyali’s former accountant and close associate Cemil Onal, who is heard saying the bribe was paid “in exchange for not confiscating the Falyali family’s assets in Turkey and to end all investigations against them.”</p><p>Onal was recently arrested in the Netherlands in connection with Falyali’s murder and is currently in a Dutch prison, where he allegedly made the recordings. Guven claims that Oktay was replaced as Turkish vice president because word about the bribery got out.</p><p>Oktay, who at the time was also the Turkish minister responsible for Cyprus affairs, Tatar and Pehlivan have denied the allegations while Falyali’s wife Ozge has remained silent.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlbRVtY6dOe9UbVDSCDtBlEGLaCaUveiQ5cFUSRZs09DSVp2hAz8y4YcSNO0-AgD_aefGV4nAvqXboxlMBXk-aI_BJ1VBrUc70b2GAT6b7bJy9VGrRlGlpJ579Vo06IYROizoXCjeIkKEF55_LUq7Tx95J03XfPtSg203cRdJT2S_1AhvB3grAKMEGKz4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="683" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlbRVtY6dOe9UbVDSCDtBlEGLaCaUveiQ5cFUSRZs09DSVp2hAz8y4YcSNO0-AgD_aefGV4nAvqXboxlMBXk-aI_BJ1VBrUc70b2GAT6b7bJy9VGrRlGlpJ579Vo06IYROizoXCjeIkKEF55_LUq7Tx95J03XfPtSg203cRdJT2S_1AhvB3grAKMEGKz4" width="160" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Turkish Cypriots leader Ersin Tatar</span></b><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Hotelier, betting and casino tycoon Falyali was gunned down in February 2022 in a gangland-style execution involving Kalashnikovs and A47s while being driven home. His funeral was attended by high-ranking Turkish Cypriot politicians including Tatar.</p><p>Falyali, who was known as the main sponsor of the campaigns of Tatar’s National Unity Party UBP, faced criminal charges in the United States for money laundering. A 2015 US court affidavit said he rans“a large-scale drug and weapons trafficking organisation” in northern Cyprus and was “known to be associated with Turkish organised crime”.</p><p>In the same YouTube broadcast, Guven said Turkey has turned the northern part of Cyprus into a “crime heaven” and therefore, does not want a solution on the island or international recognition of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state.</p><p>He also said this is why Oktay and other Turkish politicians intervened in the elections for the Turkish Cypriot leader in the north in 2020 in favour of Tatar.</p><p>“They clambered on [north] Cyprus, they literally staged a coup d’etat in the elections,” he asserted. “They got the man they wanted elected so that this… network of crime becomes stronger in [north] Cyprus; so that [north] Cyprus turns into a crime heaven for them; and so that they can fill their pockets… It has come to such a point that they don’t want [north] Cyprus to be recognised by the world or a solution there. They have themselves a grey area that is not recognised by anyone… and turned [it] into a crime heaven.”</p><p>Turkey’s interference in the 2020 elections was documented in an investigative report, which revealed shocking details of threats, pressures and blackmail against the incumbent leader Mustafa Akinci, as well as other candidates and journalists.</p><p>In a further bribery revelation in less than a week, a Turkish Cypriot businessman alleged on a live TV show that officials of the ruling right-wing coalition demanded a bribe in exchange for granting him a loan from the Development Bank.</p><p>Businessman Redif Nurel said Fikri Ataoglu, who is responsible for the tourism dossier in the north, and Hasan Tosunoglu, the then-chairman of the Development Bank demanded a bribe of 2.5 million Turkish Lira (about €77,000).</p><p>Nurel said he refused to pay the bribe and therefore never got his loan request approved.</p><p>Nurel also said that foreigners can “buy” Turkish Cypriot citizenship for 30,000 GPB (about €35,000).</p><p>Ataoglu and Tosunoglu filed a complaint with the police over the allegations.</p><p>These revelations “do not surprise me at all,” said Turkish Cypriot academic Sertac Sonan, who, with his colleague Omer Gokcekus, has been conducting annual studies on corruption in the north.</p><p>“The deterioration in terms of corruption has been evident in our reports,” Sonan told the Cyprus Mail. And it has got worse in the last three years, he said.</p><p>According to Sonan and Gokcekus’ latest study published in March and based on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) methodology, the corruption perception score for the north for 2022, is 27 out of 100 (where zero indicates very high corruption and 100 no corruption). The north’s score was 40 when the academics first conducted the study in 2019.</p><p>“I am afraid there is a worsening trend,” added Sonan. These developments “demonstrate that we, as a society, are headed downhill.”</p><p>The score of 27 is far below the average score of 43 in 180 countries and places the north in the 140th position on the index along with Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Cameroon. The 2022 corruption perception score of Turkey is 36, placing it in 101st position, while that of the Republic of Cyprus is 52, placing it at 51.</p><p>According to the 2022 study, 40 per cent of the business executives interviewed resorted to bribery in the past year. Seventy-two per cent of the 350 interviewed said bribery and corruption was ‘very common’. Bribery was found to be most rampant among the ‘prime minister’ and ‘ministers’.</p><p>“Turkish Cypriots have gone through bad times but in terms of good governance, I don’t think we have seen worse,” Sonan said.</p><p>He added that the worsening trend over the past years has a lot to do with the current Turkish Cypriot right-wing coalition, which has very close ties with Ankara, seeing themselves as “irreplaceable.”</p><p>“They believe they will never be held accountable,” the academic said. “And this makes them more daring in putting their own personal interests in front of those of society.”</p><p></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/01/01/crime-heaven-corruption-worsening-in-north/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/01/01/crime-heaven-corruption-worsening-in-north/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-68714364750903894482024-01-06T15:43:00.001+03:002024-01-06T15:43:05.313+03:00Property-owning Jews in north increasingly targeted<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>17 December 2023</b></p><div><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjeHorV3RPcN26MrUOYHnmMs84fAXFNTiXuO1S93_k0HdH6iCQZSVV-AVPVb_Nb5mBQxI_Y7k48NYkYPd4WF1wJLw73AFVGj8tYyxsVkACRl0x8m92VLRtck9OiBlL7A15dQHxKx4PEu8l4Skm56ai8aL42MewyT8KUCBTazFavpFGDiun1PEdZ79Kn4HY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjeHorV3RPcN26MrUOYHnmMs84fAXFNTiXuO1S93_k0HdH6iCQZSVV-AVPVb_Nb5mBQxI_Y7k48NYkYPd4WF1wJLw73AFVGj8tYyxsVkACRl0x8m92VLRtck9OiBlL7A15dQHxKx4PEu8l4Skm56ai8aL42MewyT8KUCBTazFavpFGDiun1PEdZ79Kn4HY" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan</b></span></span></div><p></p><p><b><i>‘The opposition to Israel’s actions against Palestinians has turned into an unconscious attack on all Israelis and Jews’</i></b></p><p>Since the Hamas attack on Israel in early October and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza, the Jews living in the northern part of Cyprus are increasingly becoming a target, particularly by nationalist circles.</p><p>The aggression often involves the disclosure of identities and in some cases photographs of Jews living among the Turkish Cypriot community on social media. The posts are widely circulated.</p><p>Most recently, a group led by Yasemi Ozturk, a member of the Turkish Cypriot assembly from the majority coalition partner right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), staged a demonstration in front of a Jewish centre, Chabad, in Kyrenia, calling it “a concrete step towards the building of a Zionist structure in [the northern part of] Cyprus”. Back in November, the Chabad building was sealed off by local authorities pressured by the same nationalist group on the grounds that it didn’t have the necessary documentation.</p><p>Late last month, five business organisations including the Cyprus Turkish Businesspeople Association, in a statement that condemned Israel’s attack on Gaza and called for a ceasefire, said: “The Jewish colony settled in our country should be controlled and the necessary measures should be taken regarding their residency here.”</p><p>“There is a very dangerous and concerning trend,” says Middle East expert professor Nur Koprulu. “Incriminating individual Jews or the whole Jewish community is antisemitism, hate speech and discrimination… What we cannot tell apart here is the distinction between the Jewish community and the Israeli state… And the stereotypes about Jews that are still very present in the society, are revived with negative developments such as war.”</p><p>She underlines that the trauma of war and killing of innocent people on both sides is also playing a big role worldwide which manifests itself at times as antisemitism and at times as Islamophobia.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2XbGA-9OjhmuEFIGhUly_naGYbvg-h3H_oElAFDcCpaansMVASuIwpp3eAauC9R5WwH1KDrux3QTZaAR76f5N-nf5xS3KmcldN1BH1d-Lkak1jk_XiPCskjTotoLvDW8AsLogQrvXa6RvXtKY1cyg1owtZNZIDsndiZ6eStL8sYJjiGomFtvdhIUH9V8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="323" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2XbGA-9OjhmuEFIGhUly_naGYbvg-h3H_oElAFDcCpaansMVASuIwpp3eAauC9R5WwH1KDrux3QTZaAR76f5N-nf5xS3KmcldN1BH1d-Lkak1jk_XiPCskjTotoLvDW8AsLogQrvXa6RvXtKY1cyg1owtZNZIDsndiZ6eStL8sYJjiGomFtvdhIUH9V8" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from one of the newspapers accused of antisemitism</span></b><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Property ownership</b></p><p>The aggression against Jews mainly focuses on their land and property ownership amid claims that they want to establish an Israeli state in northern Cyprus as part of the “Great Israel Project”.</p><p>Last month, a Turkish Cypriot nationalist journalist disclosed on social media the names of hundreds of real estate development companies owned by Jews along with their identities as well as their Turkish Cypriot partners under the heading “The Zionists among us.” The Jewish people identified in the post – also widely circulated in Turkey – were mostly the citizens of the unrecognised Turkish Cypriot state, which gives them the right to reside, buy property, and work freely in the north.</p><p>The antisemitic sentiment was exacerbated by a number of mainland Turkish media outlets that picked up on the post and did their own reports on the issue.</p><p>Sabah, which is among one of the biggest dailies in Turkey, claimed that there are 35,000 Jews living in northern Cyprus, who have bought 25,000 donums of land. The daily added that there are some 2,000 construction companies owned by Jews, which are building properties and selling only to Jews in the north.</p><p>“Israel is conquering TRNC [Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus],” said Sabah.</p><p>Another Turkish daily, the Islamist Milli Gazete, claimed that “Zionists are amassing land in Cyprus, especially in areas that face Tel Aviv” and said an “unarmed invasion” is taking place.</p><p>International Relations associate professor Yonca Ozdemir warns against this mentality. “If there is any concern about the environmental, social or any other consequence of land sales then they should be looking at all sales,” she says. “It shouldn’t matter who is buying the land. Otherwise, this is antisemitism.”</p><p>“Who will be responsible of the horrific consequences of making targets of Jews, who have been living and investing in the northern part of Cyprus for decades?” asked journalist Pinar Barut at the online Ozgur Gazete newspaper. “The opposition to Israel’s actions against Palestinians has turned into an unconscious attack to all Israelis and Jews… Does this not bother the government and the law enforcement?”</p><p>The commotion about Jewish land ownership led a right-wing Turkish politician to ask Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan about “allegations that tens of thousands of donums of land in the north had been purchased by middlemen connected to Israel” in the Turkish parliament.</p><p>Fidan downplayed the Israeli property ownership but said that the land purchases by foreigners are being monitored since he was the chief of the Turkish intelligence agency MIT.</p><p>“We are conveying our concerns to the [Turkish] Cypriot authorities,” Fidan said.</p><p>Soon after Fidan’s statements, the department responsible for the interior affairs announced last week that it is preparing legal amendments that will bring limitations on property sales to foreigners.</p><p>“It is important to protect the land in the TRNC and not give it over to foreigners,” said Fikri Ataoglu, who is responsible for the tourism dossier in the north. “I don’t want TRNC land to be sold to anyone other than Turks.”</p><p>The amendments will not affect foreigners, who have been granted Turkish Cypriot citizenship.</p><p>“The territories of TRNC…were taken by guns,” wrote journalist Serhat Incirli in the daily Yeniduzen, after the announcement. “And now foreigners are buying these lands. The fuss is especially about some Israeli individuals or companies… Is there a problem if the looted territories are bought by Turkish companies rather than Israeli ones? No… We are being racist… Did we not steal the land over which we are fighting, being antisemitic, disgracing ourselves? The essence of the issue is very simple: ‘Fascists Turks cannot stomach that the stolen land is now being sold to some Israeli companies’.”</p><p>There has been a sharp increase in construction and property sales in northern Cyprus in recent years. Some 4,600 foreigners were given permission to buy properties in the first ten months of 2023. However, far more properties are being bought in the north by foreigners who have been granted Turkish Cypriot citizenships; by lawyers on behalf of foreigners; or Turkish Cypriot companies with “silent foreign partners” to avoid limitations imposed on foreigners. Official records do not show such transactions and estimates are that about 50 per cent of transactions are not recorded.</p><p><b>Is the north harbouring terrorism?</b></p><p>Meanwhile, Last Sunday, Israel said that it was “troubled” by use of the northern part of Cyprus “both for terrorism objectives and as an operational and transit area”. The statement described the north “as an area of activity and transit to attack Israeli and Jewish targets. [This] constitutes a disturbing issue.”</p><p>The statement came after Israel helped Republic of Cyprus foil an Iranian-ordered attack against Israelis and Jews on the island and captured two Iranian nationals. They were believed to have come to the Republic from the north.</p><p>Turkish Cypriot officials were quick to brush off Israel’s statement, with the speaker of the assembly Zorlu Tore labelling it as an “attempt to conceal the genocide it is committing in Palestine”.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/12/17/property-owning-jews-in-north-increasingly-targeted/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/12/17/property-owning-jews-in-north-increasingly-targeted/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-43380641533998037022023-12-05T16:59:00.001+03:002023-12-05T16:59:07.812+03:00Ever-widening divisions between rich and poor in north<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>December 3, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>Many families are surviving on less than the hunger threshold of €557 a month</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1Q6cLImCvl5yEA1qtFSIuZ4BRg-kmMXZUi_9T2LxNhrvKRsz_8IbxkEvcAIFl9yDpgPf3G3BamYIrES_Vl4RKD3pML-EVVd5LBYTGJEPVn-Fi6aFLvVGMqYgPBWxqrl3NW_2QmYGVQgES2LBs3Ei6EfZuEtKJVZMoYPCfDDMNZcSPjJdN1E23tPB35CU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="787" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1Q6cLImCvl5yEA1qtFSIuZ4BRg-kmMXZUi_9T2LxNhrvKRsz_8IbxkEvcAIFl9yDpgPf3G3BamYIrES_Vl4RKD3pML-EVVd5LBYTGJEPVn-Fi6aFLvVGMqYgPBWxqrl3NW_2QmYGVQgES2LBs3Ei6EfZuEtKJVZMoYPCfDDMNZcSPjJdN1E23tPB35CU" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>The price of bread was recently increased by a further 20 per cent</b><p></p><p>A growing number of Turkish Cypriots live below the poverty threshold, while the income inequality between the richest and poorest segments of the society reaches unprecedented levels, a recent survey has revealed.</p><p>According to the 2021-2022 household budget survey conducted by the statistics institution in the northern part of Cyprus, almost 15 per cent of the population are currently living under the poverty threshold.</p><p>For comparison purposes, calculated with the methodology used in the European Union member states, the ratio increases to 22.8 per cent according to economists. This places the north among Romania and Bulgaria – the two EU countries with the largest percentage of people living below the poverty threshold.</p><p>The survey also shows that while poverty is growing, the high-income segment of the society is receiving a much larger percentage of the population’s total income. The Gini coefficient, which shows the degree of inequality in the distribution of income, is 0.37. According to economists, a Gini coefficient greater than 0.4 indicates that there is a big income gap in the society, which often leads to social and political instability or tension.</p><p>The survey results “show a huge inequality in income distribution, where the Turkish Cypriot middle class is fading into poverty, while the rich are getting richer,” economist Mustafa Besim explains to the Cyprus Mail. “The distortion in the distribution of income in the society has never been this bad.”</p><p>Besim highlights that GDP per capita has remained almost the same in the last 15 years – around 14,000 dollars – while the equality in distribution of income has deteriorated. The Gini coefficient in the previous survey conducted in 2015 was 0.33.</p><p><b><i>Hunger threshold</i></b></p><p>Making the situation grimmer, a calculation by the Cyprus Turkish Civil Servants Union KTAMS has revealed that a family of four earning the minimum wage is not only poor, but is in fact living below the hunger threshold.</p><p>According to KTAMS’ calculations, the hunger threshold – the amount needed to maintain a healthy, balanced and adequate diet – for a family of four as of October was 17,074 Turkish lira (about €557). The minimum wage is 15,750 Turkish lira (about €501).</p><p>“Those earning the minimum wage are left to starve,” Ktams head Guven Bengihan stated when announcing the findings. “People with minimum wage do not have the money they need to get enough food for their families.”</p><p>“I earn the minimum wage and have three children, who go to school,” Hamit Manga told the daily Yeniduzen a few weeks ago in a street interview. “I can only make ends meet because I do an extra job… I am worried about the future of my children. It looks like the only thing I will leave them will be debt.”</p><p>“It’s impossible to save money. We are only saving the day,” stated Mustafa Altinkalb in the same interview. “Many people are selling whatever they have just to survive. The rich have become richer, and the poor have hit rock bottom.”</p><p>“There is no middle class anymore,” said Mehmet Kadiri. “The rich lead super lives and the poor are struggling at the bottom… We are like a hopeless patient living on life support.”</p><p><b><i>Inflation</i></b></p><p>One of the main reasons that distorted the distribution of income to this extent is inflation, according to economist Besim. Turkish Cypriots have been going through one of the worst economic crises in their history since 2021 as the Turkish lira continuously declined in value against most major global currencies. Just this year, the Turkish lira lost 40 per cent of its value. This has led to soaring prices in the northern part of Cyprus, where the economy is dependent on imports.</p><p>According to the Statistical Institute, the annual inflation was 78.6 per cent in October. The monthly inflation was 1.9 per cent, while the monthly food inflation was recorded as 3.3 per cent. Earlier this week, the price of bread increased a further 20 per cent.</p><p>Although the official currency in the north is the Turkish lira and people’s salaries are also paid in lira, many expenses like rent and school fees are in foreign currencies, which exacerbates the situation. As Turkish Cypriots, especially those on low or fixed incomes, have experienced a huge drop in their purchasing power leading to a decline in their living standards, they have also seen their debts cascade as most borrowing in the north is done in foreign currencies.</p><p><b><i>Construction boom</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiV_9QEg9GbwxpRp9vXtK49tMqqoldxzS-T-gQ4NZc73RSiRVHQBXMuLzz9v6XayQlFvAzfIb91yrDYRZfsSN88adU9wJcXog0ALUINyOz99EVLDWCVcSlr4Me2nyZyE9gBGhbLVXwP4v-vBHojf1jZbna_VdsAF18hRnyoP-O12tB0hrCBNqNF84ZaREc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1498" data-original-width="2560" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiV_9QEg9GbwxpRp9vXtK49tMqqoldxzS-T-gQ4NZc73RSiRVHQBXMuLzz9v6XayQlFvAzfIb91yrDYRZfsSN88adU9wJcXog0ALUINyOz99EVLDWCVcSlr4Me2nyZyE9gBGhbLVXwP4v-vBHojf1jZbna_VdsAF18hRnyoP-O12tB0hrCBNqNF84ZaREc" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Tens of thousands of houses are being built and sold mostly to foreigners in places like Trikomo</b><p></p><p>However, parallel to the increase in poverty and the income inequality, there is a huge amount of cash flow into some sectors such as construction and real-estate in recent years.</p><p>Ten of thousands of houses are being built and sold mostly to foreigners – mainly Russians and Iranians – in areas like Kyrenia and Iskele/Trikomo. Lack of reliable statistics and the overall problem of the unregistered economy makes it impossible to calculate exactly how big the construction and real estate sector is, but economist Merkan Hamit roughly estimates, looking at the construction projects and the prices, that property sales generate an annual 1 billion dollars in the north. This is almost one thirds of the gross domestic product.</p><p>It is estimated that the unregistered economy amounts to 80 per cent of the total economic activity.</p><p>According to the Chamber of Shopkeepers and Artisans (Ktezo), while small businesses, particularly in the food and beverage sector, are steadily going out of business, brokers, consultants and real estate agents, primarily run by foreign citizens, are taking their place. Data from Ktezo show that half of the small food and beverage businesses opened in recent years have closed down, while almost one third of new workplaces that have opened so far this year are linked to the real estate sector.</p><p>“There is a lot of economic activity in certain sectors, but due to a lack of effective public policies from adequate regulations, to controls and taxation policies, the revenue that is generated is not distributed equally to the society,” says Besim. “While certain segments of the society are getting ridiculously rich, others are not able to benefit from this economic activity… There is a very rich group on the one side, and then a very poor group on the other.”</p><p>The income inequality and the ensuing shrinking middle class has serious social implications, according to Besim.</p><p>“As the middle class becomes poorer, it starts spending its income solely on the basics such as food, health and shelter,” he explains. “The smaller the middle class, the smaller segment of the population spends on education, arts, culture. This completely distorts the social structure of the society as a strong middle class is required for a strong democracy. The lack of a strong middle class means those in power aren’t questioned or criticised. It is easier to govern societies with such a big income inequality. Unfortunately, this is where we are headed.”</p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/12/03/ever-widening-divisions-between-rich-and-poor-in-north/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/12/03/ever-widening-divisions-between-rich-and-poor-in-north/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-29161622300965402052023-12-05T16:54:00.002+03:002023-12-05T16:54:27.555+03:00Stark increase in north’s population<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>November 5, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>Numbers could be up as much as 40 per cent since 2011</i></b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p><b><i></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjXUsk6HFdMhpmPlYx_8cShgXjyytfhyCLa_NCV6y5fU6e7Ydk8xVA5LrVk-9M7zCGyIs-Wktv3PXlAbexTxBVrNiC0EQQgGzwROCyj5BCGtVUNUquqVjd2CJRJQiTKQZ4-ZqVHh1ZGECXxc2087HwrqUy5EAh9VDTGc2L9cDJf44OIO25Nd5RU5wAy1H4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="960" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjXUsk6HFdMhpmPlYx_8cShgXjyytfhyCLa_NCV6y5fU6e7Ydk8xVA5LrVk-9M7zCGyIs-Wktv3PXlAbexTxBVrNiC0EQQgGzwROCyj5BCGtVUNUquqVjd2CJRJQiTKQZ4-ZqVHh1ZGECXxc2087HwrqUy5EAh9VDTGc2L9cDJf44OIO25Nd5RU5wAy1H4" width="320" /></a></i></b></div><b><i><br /></i>Some 60,000 new homes were sold in the last seven years, the majority of which were bought by foreigners</b><p></p><p>The population of the north may have increased by as much as 40 per cent since the last census in 2011, compared with a ten per cent growth rate in the south of the island, sparking a furious debate on why Turkish Cypriots are being left to ‘guesstimate’ how many of them are left and if they themselves have become a minority.</p><p>“We know the population!… There are some numbers that you can talk about and some that you cannot. There are some things that cannot be said,” lashed Unal Ustel, head of the Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition, on live TV recently when asked why there are no plans to do a census in the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>Besides leaving the presenter and viewers speechless, the statement once again ignited the debate about the mystery around the population living in this part of the island.</p><p>“What is it that you can’t talk about?” opposition deputy Dogus Derya immediately took the social media. “What are you trying to hide? That we have become a minority in our own country?”</p><p>The last census in the north was done in 2011 with unofficial United Nations supervision and found the de jure population to be some 286,000, excluding Turkish military and their families residing in military bases. Although there were widespread reports of undercounting, this is the only figure that the Turkish Cypriot statistics office currently has, to make projections.</p><p>Taking the 2011 census as a basis, the office has recently announced a projected population of almost 400,000 as of the end of 2022. This figure was found unrealistic by most including the head of the statistics office Irfan Tansel Demir himself, who acknowledged that the projection has a considerable margin of error because of the time that has passed since the last census in 2011. Demir also raised questions about the accuracy of that census “because many people were not found at home.”</p><p>Even with these official numbers, however, the increase in population is stark. The difference between the 2011 census and the 2022 projection points to an almost 40 per cent increase in population in 11 years. The population growth rate in the Republic of Cyprus during the same period was less than 10 per cent.</p><p>Senior researcher Mete Hatay from PRIO Cyprus Centre, who has done extensive research on the population in the northern part of Cyprus, says that the projection only takes into account criteria such as fertility and death rates of the community and does not include the vital – and presumably huge – number of those, who are working in the black economy or who have overstayed their visas.</p><p>“We know that the population is at least half a million, but we don’t have the necessary details to make a healthy estimate,” says Hatay. He adds that “in any case, at any given moment, Turkish Cypriots are a minority in the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>Turkish Cypriots in every walk of life feel the consequences of the overpopulation. Last month, the Cyprus Turkish Teachers Union (KTOS) official Akgun Kacmaz, talked about the shortness of teaching staff and mentioned that container classrooms had been set up in many public schools to manage the student numbers due to the increasing population.</p><p>Izlem Gurcag, who was responsible for the health dossier of the northern part of Cyprus, admitted in August as she was leaving her post that, “Our financial resources are not enough for the population that is cascading every day.”</p><p>Hatay says that as well as the size, the composition of the population in the north is also changing rapidly. Whereas until a few years ago the non-Turkish Cypriot population was almost exclusively Turkish, recently there is a tremendous number of people from other countries flowing into the north.</p><p>Currently there are some 110,000 foreign university students in over 20 universities in the north – mostly from Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Africa, Middle East, and Far East. They come to the northern part of Cyprus on a student visa, which is very easy to get. For the first time this year, the number of students from these third countries exceeded the number of students from Turkey.</p><p>The last couple of years also saw a huge increase in the Russian and Iranian population in the northern part of Cyprus. Russian news agency Itar Tass reported a few months ago that some 50,000 Russians live in the northern part of Cyprus, where Kremlin recently started mobile consular services. According to the official data by the tourism department, only in January-September this year, some 39 thousand Russians and 33 thousand Iranians came to north through the sea and airports.</p><p><b><i>“We don’t want to know”</i></b></p><p>Researcher Hatay argues that there is a deliberate political decision not to make any census “because we don’t want to know.”</p><p>“First of all, the more ambiguous the population numbers are, the more it can be politicised,” asserts Hatay. “Everyone benefits from the ambigiouty. Some ask for more money based on inflated numbers, some use the ‘Turkish Cypriots are becoming extinct’ fear to get votes.”</p><p>But more importantly, according to Hatay, a census would reveal certain realities on ground, such as the alarming number of people – mostly university students – working in the black economy.</p><p>“A huge system of exploitation has been set up through universities,” says Hatay. “There are slave students here.”</p><p>The higher education sector, which is one of the main engines of the Turkish Cypriot economy, has grown in an uncontrolled fashion as the policy has been to open as many universities and attract as many foreign students as possible. According to the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report in 2022, in many cases, foreign students are promised low tuition fees, accommodation and access to good jobs. Once in the northern part of Cyprus, they end up being exploited as cheap labour, or forced into prostitution or drug trafficking. Some are smuggled into the Republic of Cyprus.</p><p>According to Hatay, not doing a census also serves conveniently to obscure the size of certain groups of people in the country.</p><p>These groups do not just consist of Turks anymore – whose increasing presence in the north has always been contentious.</p><p>“They especially don’t want to talk about the foreign property owners,” says Hatay.</p><p>According to Hatay, some 60,000 new homes were sold in the last seven years, the majority of which were bought by foreigners. The numbers in the official gazette show that the number of foreigners – mostly Russians – investing in property has significantly increased as of November 2022, which coincides with the sanctions on Russian nationals due to the war in Ukraine. Russians can easily buy property in the northern part of Cyprus as banks here are not part of the international Swift system and operate via Ankara, which has not put sanctions on Russia. There currently are a further 15,000-20,000 thousand ongoing construction of homes. According to economist Merkan Hamit, looking at the construction projects and the prices, it can roughly be estimated that the property sales generate an annual 1 billion dollars, which is almost one thirds of the gross domestic product of the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>Turkish Cypriot judiciaries have recently been warning about a risky money circulation in the northern part of Cyprus, whereby large amounts of money are coming in for real estate purchases but then going completely unchecked.</p><p>In some cases, these foreign property owners have been revealed as individuals wanted by Interpol. Earlier this week, Russian citizen Vladislav Apakov wanted by Interpol for embezzling large amounts of money, was found to be residing in the north. In June, another Russian national Stanislav Mitrushi wanted by Interpol for money laundering, was arrested in the north. Last year, Australian fugitive Mark Buddle also wanted by Interpol for links to a transnational criminal syndicate was arrested in the north, where he had acquired a sizeable amount of property. The recently published Global Organised Crime Index 2023 states that “In areas not under the effective control of the Republic of Cyprus, there are a number of people wanted by Interpol.”</p><p>Considering how important the higher education and real-estate sectors are for the economy of the northern part of Cyprus, this order of exploitation and illicitness needs to continue, and it can only continue if the ambiguity continues.</p><p>“The northern part of Cyprus, which has long been isolated from the world, has now integrated with the world through a system of exploitation and illicitness,” concludes Hatay. “And the long-standing controversy and speculation surrounding the population serves to maintain this. For this to continue, we have to not know.”</p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/11/05/stark-increase-in-norths-population/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/11/05/stark-increase-in-norths-population/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-80169706882942245602023-12-05T16:50:00.002+03:002023-12-05T16:50:22.623+03:00Fake prescriptions case rocks the north<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>October 22, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>One doctor wrote 7,800 prescriptions in a month</i></b></p><p><b><i></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgh6gTfZBUl-zKGfFJ1xwLrBETewQic1cj1lkPtx6iRbZVwAKvUwdnUT9d8t4IMYJ8mo6JRpoQrWxnmQADk0lrthA1Xh_LeRIJkFj6P_a4I8_ZxeGQ_OsHPJmtDGAs6wNfAyujk9ksoTo-gBHGaKBCxkJEODyvXn_RaRRawW19qYOht5D0ztOaeujIwLpE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1280" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgh6gTfZBUl-zKGfFJ1xwLrBETewQic1cj1lkPtx6iRbZVwAKvUwdnUT9d8t4IMYJ8mo6JRpoQrWxnmQADk0lrthA1Xh_LeRIJkFj6P_a4I8_ZxeGQ_OsHPJmtDGAs6wNfAyujk9ksoTo-gBHGaKBCxkJEODyvXn_RaRRawW19qYOht5D0ztOaeujIwLpE" width="320" /></a></i></b></div><b><i><br /></i>The investigation concerns fake prescriptions forged by pharmacists in the name of patients eligible for social insurance and signed by doctors</b><p></p><p>The ongoing investigation into the “fake prescription” scandal in the northern part of Cyprus has shaken Turkish Cypriots as they witnessed respected doctors and pharmacists – including former officials – arrested and brought to court in handcuffs one after the other over the past month.</p><p>A former speaker of the Turkish Cypriot assembly and former head of the governing coalition; a former official responsible for the health dossier in the north; relatives of the current official responsible for health; and former members of assembly were among some 50 doctors and pharmacists, who have been arrested in the past month as part of the investigation on the medical prescription forgery. Most of those arrested have been released on bail after spending at least one night in detention.</p><p>The scheme is believed to have cost the Turkish Cypriot administration 60 million lira (over €2 million) just in 2023.</p><p>Put simply, the investigation concerns fake medical prescriptions forged by some pharmacists in the name of patients eligible for social insurance benefits and signed by some doctors. By pretending to sell the medication to the patients and submitting the fake prescriptions to claim money, the pharmacists got wrongfully compensated by social insurance.</p><p>While some of the signing doctors were paid by the pharmacists per signature, others are understood to be alleging an abuse of trust, where they gave signed prescriptions to pharmacies and didn’t realise what was being done with them. The barcodes of the medication in question were removed, and they were either sold to other patients or disposed of. In some cases, the arrested doctors and pharmacists believed to be part of the scheme were relatives.</p><p>As the arrest of well-known doctors and pharmacists being investigated on charges of forgery and circulation of official documents, undeserved gains, making the social security department incur losses, laundering proceeds of crime, and fraudulent procurement, has become a daily incident in the northern part of Cyprus, police keep finding trash bags full of prescription medication without barcodes worth tens of thousands of euros disposed in fields in various remote areas.</p><p>The investigation, which currently only covers prescriptions written in 2023, was prompted by a criminal complaint by the labour and social security department of the Turkish Cypriot administration on September 13.</p><p>Shortly after taking office in August, “the director of social insurance came to me with his concerns,” Sadik Gardiyanoglu, the official responsible for the labour and social security dossier, said during a live TV show on Tuesday. “He said there was a significant, abnormal number of prescriptions being submitted to the system.”</p><p>Reading from a list, Gardiyanoglu continued: “There is a doctor, who wrote 6,900 prescriptions in one month. There is another one, who wrote 7,800.</p><p>“This is impossible,” he explained. “It is impossible for a doctor to see 6-7 thousand patients in a month.”</p><p>According to Gardiyanoglu, some doctors were arrested as they were trying to leave through Ercan/Tymbou airport or Ayios Dhometios crossing point.</p><p>Court testimonies suggest that there were a number of doctors with an average of over 30,000 prescriptions in just the first seven months of 2023, while most doctors wrote an average of 300 prescriptions in the period in question.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEuCYIiGCa46edkmiWg7AqkRZPS8uWBxTx_C-bnKNz6j_6xvUGvZ-DtQS7sed0_s6J1khbSAv-eNQglIdwPhgkTod0RIOsULXbXXERCrm6whgyv-baUExU0jZ2z-K-ZImtOPRPc6e7n6TzPdMO8Lew5PFcS8YckBdlddA2m3lYjVOO1F1qi17-xsJETK4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="600" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEuCYIiGCa46edkmiWg7AqkRZPS8uWBxTx_C-bnKNz6j_6xvUGvZ-DtQS7sed0_s6J1khbSAv-eNQglIdwPhgkTod0RIOsULXbXXERCrm6whgyv-baUExU0jZ2z-K-ZImtOPRPc6e7n6TzPdMO8Lew5PFcS8YckBdlddA2m3lYjVOO1F1qi17-xsJETK4" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Some of those arrested in the case</b><p></p><p>Doctor Cagri Cemaler, the vice president of the Cyprus Turkish Medical Doctors Association (KTTB), which has declared support for the investigation, confirms that the main suspicion is on around five to six doctors but underlines that all need to be investigated. The Cyprus Turkish Pharmacists Association (KTEB) also expressed support for the police and judiciary in the process.</p><p>“As a legal expert, I have to say that the information we have so far shows us that at the end of this process, some people will most likely be found to have committed serious crimes,” stated main opposition Republican Turkish Party CTP head Tufan Erhurman earlier this week.</p><p><b><i>How about the administration?</i></b></p><p>Director Tahir Serhat of the social insurance unit, who prompted the investigation by taking his concerns to Gardiyanoglu, has told a number of Turkish Cypriot dailies over the past month that he first realised an anomaly in the prescriptions in 2021 when he was an inspector. Serhat explained that the anomaly involved just one pharmacy at the time, and a criminal complaint was made to the police. The case was never taken forward.</p><p>Many are now questioning why the current investigation is only focusing on doctors and pharmacists when the social insurance unit continued to make the payments even after detecting an anomaly, and when there obviously were others, who caused a delay in the investigation.</p><p>“Why was an investigation, which had to start in 2021, delayed until September 2023?” asked lawyer Asli Murat in the daily Yeniduzen. “What did the police or the ministry officials do during the time in between? Social insurance payments continued in full. Public finances were wasted… Should we not also be talking about a negligence on the part of the administration? Will there be action against the administrative staff and those who did not take the investigation forward in 2021, or who prevented it?”</p><p>Independent member of the Turkish Cypriot assembly Jale Refik Rogers, who herself comes from the health sector, agrees: “The administration is at least as guilty as those, who have committed forgery, because it prepared the grounds for such forgery and made it possible to waste public resources… There is a serious lack of organisation and inspection from the moment of getting the medication to the point of supplying it to the patients. The current system is open to exploitation.”</p><p><b><i>Presumption of innocence</i></b></p><p>Another aspect of the investigation being vigorously debated is the practice of handcuffing the suspects and parading them in front of the journalists, who most of time are printing their photographs and names openly in media outlets.</p><p>“The principle of presumption of innocence dictates that nobody can be declared a criminal because of a crime they allegedly committed, before they are convicted,” underlines lawyer Murat. “Contrary practices resemble the forms of punishment used in Middle Ages.”</p><p>According to lawyer Hasan Esendagli, who is the head of the Turkish Cypriot Bar Association, there is no legal grounds for handcuffing the suspects, and this is only done on an order by the police “in an attempt to not seem like it is making an exception for certain people”.</p><p>Over the years “police have been accused of making privileges to some people,” said Esendagli. “So now, in an attempt to show they treat everyone equal, they are violating human rights and freedoms.”</p><p>The bad hygiene in the cells, where the suspects are being held during detention is also contentious.</p><p>“With the argument that they may damage the evidence, or run away, the doctors and pharmacists are being kept in cells full of bedbugs, where there is no adequate clean water, toilet facilities or hygiene,” stated CTP depty Filiz Besim. “They have no bed to lie down on and are denied books.</p><p>Meanwhile, the Media Ethics Board (MEK) has made a series of statements calling on the media to not print photos and names of the suspects.</p><p>Drawing attention to the likely outcome that some totally innocent doctors and pharmacists are being victimised alongside those, who have committed a seemingly organised crime, journalist Cenk Mutluyakali asks:</p><p>“Those, who are found to be guilty, will be punished. But who will pay the price of the disgrace and cruelty inflicted on those who will be found not to be guilty?”</p><p></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/10/22/fake-prescriptions-case-rocks-the-north/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/10/22/fake-prescriptions-case-rocks-the-north/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-79638989457079340952023-12-05T16:46:00.003+03:002023-12-05T16:46:18.449+03:00Trial of journalist an attempt to ‘silence’ Turkish Cypriot dissent<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>October 8, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>Case centres on a meeting held by Turkey to sway 2020 Turkish Cypriot elections</i></b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQEll5d3rymS69WeGyrBevfxOurOjHYfzRpGRc_6ncLKIaGLd1jahVLMdkLlpeU3W3PRlIaGcHVBwqybmpSzS99QKwDbFPc6s6i_8cHF9z5B10XvSEsmQJCLw6ZyGWOXI5MlKlKR3vqSSkOjwsbe2B21NB9fCoFjJiwS1B0bdWKOQK7mssDwFEE-RAee4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQEll5d3rymS69WeGyrBevfxOurOjHYfzRpGRc_6ncLKIaGLd1jahVLMdkLlpeU3W3PRlIaGcHVBwqybmpSzS99QKwDbFPc6s6i_8cHF9z5B10XvSEsmQJCLw6ZyGWOXI5MlKlKR3vqSSkOjwsbe2B21NB9fCoFjJiwS1B0bdWKOQK7mssDwFEE-RAee4" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Turkish Cypriot journalist Ali Kismir</b><p></p><p>The unprecedented criminal case that has raised eyebrows both locally and internationally, in which Turkish Cypriot journalist Ali Kismir faces up to ten years in prison for “insulting and defaming” the Turkish Cypriot security forces, began on Friday.</p><p>Kismir is being charged for an article about Turkey’s meddling in the 2020 elections for Turkish Cypriot leader. The journalist, who is also the president of the Turkish Cypriot Journalists Union (Basin-Sen), had written that Turkish officials held a meeting in a building belonging to the Turkish Cypriot security forces command to sway the elections in favour of current leader Ersin Tatar. He likened the security forces command building to a “brothel, where the will of Turkish Cypriots is sold and bought”.</p><p>After Friday’s hearing, which was postponed to October 27, Kismir’s lawyer and head of the Turkish Cypriot Bar Association Hasan Esendagli explained to the Cyprus Mail that the case is a dangerous precedent as it is the first time a high criminal case has been brought against a journalist under the law regulating military crimes and stipulates such a serious jail sentence.</p><p>“We are going through a period where we are facing everything we feared,” said Esendagli, who is voluntarily defending Kismir. “Criminal cases against people because of their opinions, ideas, words and articles are a practice of outdated, oppressive regimes. Such actions are used as weapons to make sure people are silent, that they fear to talk and write.”</p><p>As Turkey’s pressure on the media in the northern part of Cyprus grows, there is a lot of fear in the community that this could be a first step in following Ankara’s lead in imprisoning opposition journalists.</p><p>“Many journalists and dissidents are in jail in Turkey,” said Esendagli. “Unfortunately, from the cases that are being brought, we are getting indications that such a trend is also desirable here. There exists a mentality that would like to create a similar situation here.”</p><p>Currently 21 journalists are imprisoned for their professional activities in Turkey, according to the European Federation of Journalists EFJ. According to the Independent Communication Network BIA, which monitors press freedom violations in Turkey, during July-September 2023, an additional 206 journalists were on trials facing prison sentences.</p><p>International non-profit organisation Reporters Without Borders RSF, which defends and promotes press freedom around the world, also drew attention to Turkey’s growing pressure on Turkish Cypriot journalists in its 2023 Press Freedom Index.</p><p>“Sanctions and prosecution, including criminal proceedings, are being brought against journalists, who criticise the Turkish or Turkish Cypriot government, military, or authorities,” RSF said.</p><p>About Kismir’s case, Pavol Szalai, head of RSF’s EU-Balkans desk stated: “By denouncing Turkey’s meddling in Turkish Cypriot elections, Ali Kismir was just doing his job as a journalist. This abusive prosecution is nothing but an attempt by the Turkish Cypriot authorities to intimidate and muzzle journalists.”</p><p>The case against Kismir drew strong reaction from opposition parties and politicians, trade unions, intellectuals and local and international journalists’ organisations.</p><p>Turkish Cypriot Akel MEP Niyazi Kizilyurek, in a parliamentary question submitted to the European Commission, said: “This is an attempt by the ‘authorities’ to restrict press freedom and freedom of expression through the threat of imprisonment… What steps does the Commission plan to take to secure the civil rights, press freedom and freedom of expression of European citizens, which are being violated in Turkish Cypriot community?”</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfxCDymKTOSnJlRJPrR6seGozlHyPghtplrYbx24I8z0LMp-7D1WL1fz_HVZyQYMGhRYx_aBUNDXX8ia97gAvp6fcxfByChzVKaBrGHJ2kU_jDHKYMQRryGIeq1H2S5NVoFrimpQcyc_27ETzlCBf4o9uhO_2SdbgKiekqxnTKjNQt0jpOre5kzD_Fda8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="620" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfxCDymKTOSnJlRJPrR6seGozlHyPghtplrYbx24I8z0LMp-7D1WL1fz_HVZyQYMGhRYx_aBUNDXX8ia97gAvp6fcxfByChzVKaBrGHJ2kU_jDHKYMQRryGIeq1H2S5NVoFrimpQcyc_27ETzlCBf4o9uhO_2SdbgKiekqxnTKjNQt0jpOre5kzD_Fda8" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Former Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci</b><p></p><p><b><i>Intervention</i></b></p><p>The enormous pressure Ankara put on the Turkish Cypriot community during the 2020 leadership elections was documented in an investigative report, which revealed shocking details of threats, pressures and blackmail against incumbent leader Mustafa Akinci, as well as other candidates and journalists.</p><p>The meeting by Turkish officials including commanders and Turkish Central Intelligence Agency MIT officials in a Turkish Cypriot security forces command building to sway the elections in favour of the current leader Ersin Tatar – the subject of Kismir’s article – was also confirmed by Akinci in this report.</p><p>According to Akinci, a number of Turkish Cypriot deputies invited to this meeting were told by the-then Turkish ambassador in the northern part of Cyprus: “You have before you not only the ambassador, but the Turkish state. The Republic of Turkey definitely wants Tatar. It doesn’t want Akinci. For the Republic of Turkey, this is a matter of survival. You will work to make sure Tatar is elected.”</p><p>Tatar won the elections with 51.69 per cent of the votes, ousting Akinci.</p><p>Kismir, who is well known for his writings critical of Ankara’s policies and its Ankara-backed leader Tatar, was one of the journalists who received threats by Ankara during the same 2020 election campaign.</p><p>According to the report, Kismir was invited to meet with a team from Turkey, who introduced themselves as “ambassadors of the Republic of Turkey” and was told: “We are here to make sure Akinci is not elected… This man is an enemy of Turkey… If Akinci is elected he will have very bad things happen to him.”</p><p>Kismir was also told that he is on a list of ‘enemies of Turkey’.</p><p>In fact, Kismir was among a dozen Turkish Cypriot journalists, trade unionists, writers and activists, who have been denied entry to Turkey in recent years on grounds that they pose a security threat.</p><p>Kismir also lost his job at a local news portal earlier this year after publishing an article criticising Tatar. His article was removed from the website of the portal, and he was told that his web TV programme was also cancelled. He was also told by his employers that “the office of Tatar and others had called numerous times to complain” about him.</p><p>Shortly before Friday’s hearing, Kismir called on the Turkish Cypriot community to defend not only his personal freedom of expression but the freedom of expression of the whole society in what he described as a “political case aimed at silencing dissident voices”.</p><p>“Unless this struggle turns into a social struggle, today it will be me, who is on trial, and tomorrow it will be someone else,” said Kismir. “We have to say, ‘enough is enough’.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/10/08/trial-of-journalist-an-attempt-to-silence-turkish-cypriot-dissent/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/10/08/trial-of-journalist-an-attempt-to-silence-turkish-cypriot-dissent/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-86037863578944548652023-12-05T16:41:00.007+03:002023-12-05T16:41:55.395+03:00Doubts cast on ‘giant project’ to supply north’s electricity<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>September 10, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>An agreement signed with a private Turkish company to produce all the electricity in the north is riddled with problems say those in the field, who fear further dependence on Turkey</i></b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p><b><i></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4On6UlzU3hrks9pO-cz2sTvYSlUB5CzzJGLwaiAhLyib4pL-HyvwSVwpfxFAWm3XiQBBhuEs8LRcHWq5_qcjGCAmgouie8YLtbAE5tUA0rVZPy0PG8HuxbcOsp5QJoCwy4ZAgPcKiuVqXtB9cGODIWuF0kZCbSugmFKePMK27lUFsTJR6Nr1jj2R7Mtw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4On6UlzU3hrks9pO-cz2sTvYSlUB5CzzJGLwaiAhLyib4pL-HyvwSVwpfxFAWm3XiQBBhuEs8LRcHWq5_qcjGCAmgouie8YLtbAE5tUA0rVZPy0PG8HuxbcOsp5QJoCwy4ZAgPcKiuVqXtB9cGODIWuF0kZCbSugmFKePMK27lUFsTJR6Nr1jj2R7Mtw" width="320" /></a></i></b></div><b><i><br /></i>Turkish Cypriot head of coalition Unal Ustel and Turkish vice president Cevdet Vilmaz sign the agreement</b><p></p><p>Turkish Cypriot authorities have pledged to give up local electricity production entirely and become completely dependent on a planned cable from Turkey to the north.</p><p>The provisions of the recent agreement with private Turkish energy company Aksa to create the electricity cable link reveal that the pledge to get power exclusively through this cable was made blindly, as the details of the project – like the capital cost, sales price or transmission capacity – are still unclear.</p><p>According to the agreement, Aksa, which has close ties with Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party AKP, will carry out a feasibility study by July 2024. An ‘interconnection construction and operation agreement’ will then be signed, and within five years the cable link will be fully operational.</p><p>Following a memorandum of understanding for an electricity cable project from Turkey signed between Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz and ‘prime minister’ in the north Unal Ustel, an agreement was signed between Aksa and the Turkish Cypriot public electricity authority Kib-Tek on July 19. No public tender was held for the selection of the company to carry out the electricity cable project and it is not clear how Aksa was chosen.</p><p>With the agreement, Turkish Cypriot authorities have pledged that once the cable is operational all electricity needs in the north will be met by it. “The existing electricity plants will only be put into use if the electricity supplied through the cable is inadequate or there is a technical need,” the agreement states.</p><p>“After the feasibility study we will rapidly take the steps to materialise this giant project. We will put the signature of Aksa on this energy bridge with the TRNC,” Aksa CEO Cemil Kazanci said after the agreement was signed.</p><p>“We are realising a 30-year-old dream. This project will make TRNC a real part of the ‘Turkish Century’,” Ustel added.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3_PWhrXziIl2WG5iuSE_aBT9WT9FHbtXzir18RDWDnspDJthpnZSpM_P1-MVlkg5Pys6CAZp_x4hRE9qVSSmzkKzeJ9u4zofIu14qQgIX18j1XeF5toL05qJi9eEVRiwYrO0oNrgsM6tX0LiQDBmreRMxhOhWlEe90guEkGpWBCJOmYMj6NrZPW5W-5M" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="600" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3_PWhrXziIl2WG5iuSE_aBT9WT9FHbtXzir18RDWDnspDJthpnZSpM_P1-MVlkg5Pys6CAZp_x4hRE9qVSSmzkKzeJ9u4zofIu14qQgIX18j1XeF5toL05qJi9eEVRiwYrO0oNrgsM6tX0LiQDBmreRMxhOhWlEe90guEkGpWBCJOmYMj6NrZPW5W-5M" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Aksa’s facility in the north</b><p></p><p>Even though the idea of the cable link has been voiced at various points in the past, it was set as a top priority by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his re-election in May. Branded “the second project of the century” after the water pipeline from Turkey to the northern part of Cyprus, the cable link is promoted by Turkish and Turkish Cypriot officials as “the solution to the electricity woes on the island”.</p><p>Turkish Cypriots have been suffering from sweltering power cuts mainly due to lack of necessary maintenance, repair and investments in the electricity infrastructure. Moreover, as electricity is mainly produced using imported fuel oil, high electricity prices due to the volatility in fossil fuel prices, the war in Ukraine and the depreciation of the Turkish lira, are crippling the community.</p><p>Experts, civil society and opposition parties are questioning however, the logic of making such a huge commitment without a tender and without knowing the costs.</p><p>“Handing the electricity cable project to a private company without a public tender and with a guarantee to purchase… is in total violation of law. There is no provision in the agreement that stipulates how the costs will be calculated in the electricity cable project and this violates basic principles of economy. This agreement is aimed at selling off the assets of the community and is a destructive step and an illegal attempt that does not protect the interests of the people,” the Republican Turkish Party CTP, which took the agreement to the High Administrative Court along with the Cyprus Turkish Electricity Authority Workers Union El-Sen, said.</p><p>The Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Mechanical Engineers, which filed a criminal complaint over the agreement saying no regard was paid to public interest, said that the agreement only serves to give a private company a monopoly and increase its revenues.</p><p>“How can you ever say, ‘I will get 100 per cent of my country’s electricity through a cable?” asked chamber president Ayer Yarkiner. “How can you be this clueless? The term ‘project of the century’ is only being used out of ignorance. Nowhere in the world can a country put its signature under an investment without knowing its cost effectiveness.”</p><p>However, this is not the only point of contention. Although the agreement mentions an ‘interconnection’ none of the provisions describe a two-way transmission of electricity between Turkey and the north. The method that is envisaged in the agreement seems to be a system whereby electricity will be transmitted one-way from Turkey to the north by Aksa.</p><p>“Interconnection in the world is an alternative to diversify resources and decrease cost or ensure energy supply in case of failures,” explains energy economist and electrical engineer Yusuf Avcioglu. “There is no two-way transmission here. The agreement says ‘you will not produce electricity. I will give it to you through the cable.’ This is not interconnection… We have nothing to gain from this… We are totally surrendering to Aksa and Turkey.”</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVufLyCgZtIYzdM-GpuexjShiL-omD8Dn27A1X2BYc4iTXuzv3q30H4YuIzKDIyNL18Wgilrn_uLe08H3K2cfWzHPDw-KIQWPYuDUWGmydQRyC7BJEH8tb0SNbyBnYwmgrAD-nnUv4S5wlMnKOfczoE0PmbLcUIOi3J0yztBw91E8cqhlse0WeqSVswuo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="166" data-original-width="304" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVufLyCgZtIYzdM-GpuexjShiL-omD8Dn27A1X2BYc4iTXuzv3q30H4YuIzKDIyNL18Wgilrn_uLe08H3K2cfWzHPDw-KIQWPYuDUWGmydQRyC7BJEH8tb0SNbyBnYwmgrAD-nnUv4S5wlMnKOfczoE0PmbLcUIOi3J0yztBw91E8cqhlse0WeqSVswuo" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>The second power station in the north near Kyrenia</b><p></p><p>The Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition sold the project to the public by reassuring them that they would be exporting the power generated by solar energy to Turkey through the cable and reducing energy costs.</p><p>Besides a solar farm, households in the north have the right to set up solar panels and sell to the grid.</p><p>“You lied to people,” CTP deputy Asim Akansoy said in a speech to the Turkish Cypriot assembly. “You said it would be a two-way transmission and we would sell our solar energy. Now you are handing 100 per cent of energy production to Aksa with a guaranteed purchase agreement.”</p><p>Experts agree that a simple one-way cable rather than an interconnection is detrimental for the Turkish Cypriot community, and being totally dependent on Turkey for electricity supply is one of its biggest risks.</p><p>Electricity prices are also expected to spike because the investment cost of the cable project plus all the operational and other expenses would be reflected in electricity bills. Reports in the Turkish media put the cost of the cable project to somewhere between $500 million to $1 billion.</p><p>At the same time, Turkey is an observer member of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), which is the ultimate arbiter regarding the connection of a third state to the main grid. As long as the Cyprus problem remains unresolved, ENTSO-E is not likely to grant a permit to Turkey to make an interconnection with the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>The contentious agreement also stipulates a guarantee of purchase whereby Aksa, through its electricity plant in Kalecik/Gastria in the Famagusta district, will produce at least 49 per cent of total electricity generated in the north for 15 years “during the transitional period until the cable is operational.” Despite persistent questions by opposition parties and civil society, Turkish Cypriot authorities have not been able to explain why this guarantee of purchase has been given.</p><p>This is seen by experts as a move to ensure Kib-Tek becomes idle even before the cable project begins operating.</p><p>“There is no limit to how much Aksa can produce,” explained president of the Chamber of Electrical Engineers Uner Kutalmis. “There should have been a limit so that the public electricity authority Kib-Tek remains relevant. There is no Kib-Tek anymore. There is only Aksa.”</p><p>After starting operations in the north in 2003, Aksa already produces 45 per cent of the electricity used in the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>Furthermore, although the agreement gives the right to the Turkish Cypriot authorities to revoke it if Aksa fails to render the cable link operational in five years, an ensuing article states: “If either the Republic of Turkey or TRNC back out of the interconnection system, this will not be a reason for the revocation of this agreement.”</p><p>But you cannot just revoke this agreement after becoming so dependent on a private company, Avcioglu said.</p><p>“To be able to revoke this agreement, you need to have a production capacity that meets your needs. Right now, Aksa produces 45 per cent of the total electricity here. Do you have the capacity to cover that? No, not unless you make the necessary investments. Without doing that, you cannot just say, ‘I am revoking the agreement and I am surrendering half of the country to darkness’.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/09/10/doubts-cast-on-giant-project-to-supply-norths-electricity/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/09/10/doubts-cast-on-giant-project-to-supply-norths-electricity/</a></p><p></p><p><br /></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-32201824599725247762023-12-05T16:36:00.006+03:002023-12-05T16:36:58.629+03:00Property sales in north going unchecked<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>August 27, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>Estimates suggest that about 50 per cent of foreign transactions are not recorded</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikADF6pnlsytkVCKTXzRtVX0WYR906FntfdUlquMNd42BDLrnsHNqXeeZ3AOvQ_idVp7pxj708kKXxZhqabG7j00I3OJynR7kTdYb2cvJ9Xe1ngrIOCIAqxmd5bfvoFWObIxb9rj-UNSNdG3L-6-MwX8oTkQnthdKGiHwwpQx4_r7r1fK4wK_8k_ub0XI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikADF6pnlsytkVCKTXzRtVX0WYR906FntfdUlquMNd42BDLrnsHNqXeeZ3AOvQ_idVp7pxj708kKXxZhqabG7j00I3OJynR7kTdYb2cvJ9Xe1ngrIOCIAqxmd5bfvoFWObIxb9rj-UNSNdG3L-6-MwX8oTkQnthdKGiHwwpQx4_r7r1fK4wK_8k_ub0XI" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>Some 7,000 permissions were given to foreigners to buy property in the northern part of Cyprus since January 2021.</p><p>According to the figures in the Turkish Cypriot official gazette, a total of 1,179 permissions were given in 2021, and 2,810 permissions were given in 2022. In 2023 however, in just the first eight months, the permissions given to foreign nationals has already reached almost at 3,000.</p><p>The buyers are mostly Turkish nationals investing in the Kyrenia area in Esentepe/Ayios Amvrosios and Tatlısu/ Akanthou. They are followed by an ever-increasing number of Russians investing in İskele/Trikomo.</p><p>Experts, however, insist that as high as the figure 7,000 sounds, the actual number of properties purchased by foreign nationals is much higher.</p><p>Far more properties are being bought in the north by lawyers on behalf of foreigners, or Turkish Cypriot companies with “silent foreign partners” than what official records show for such transactions, according to economist Mertkan Hamit.</p><p>Foreign nationals need a permission from the Turkish Cypriot administration and are currently limited with only three property purchases. Moreover, the controlling 51 per cent of companies investing in real estate must belong to a Turkish Cypriot ‘citizen’.</p><p>However, local lawyers acting on behalf of foreigners or Turkish Cypriot companies with foreign multinationals in the background can and do buy as many properties as they want.</p><p>“There are tons of property sales that are not included in the official figures,” says Hamit. “These are mostly to foreign investors, who buy tens of properties in one transaction through a Turkish Cypriot partner.”</p><p>Hamit estimates that about 50 per cent of transactions are not recorded.</p><p>Board member Hüseyin Sadeghi of the Turkish Cypriot Real Estate Agents Union agrees.</p><p>“Many multi-national companies are overcoming the limitations imposed by law by either establishing companies “just for show” in the north, or using a lawyer as a front and getting the right to purchase unlimited number of properties,” says Sadeghi.</p><p>According to Hamit, looking at the construction projects and the prices, it can very roughly be estimated that the property sales generate an annual 1 billion dollars. This is almost one thirds of the gross domestic product of the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p><b>TURKISH NATIONALS </b></p><p>While 90 per cent of foreign buyers in 2022 were Turkish nationals, the rate has dropped to 70 per cent this year with significant investments coming from Russians.</p><p>Russians can easily buy property in the northern part of Cyprus as banks here are not part of the international Swift system and operate via Ankara, which has not put sanctions on Russia. In fact, the numbers in the official gazette show that the number of foreigners – mostly Russians – investing in property has significantly increased as of November 2022, which coincides with the sanctions on Russian nationals due to the war in Ukraine. As of that date, the Turkish Cypriot administration’s officials granted hundreds of permits in each sitting as can be seen from the decisions published in the official gazette.</p><p>In fact, Russian news agency Itar Tass reported earlier this month that some 50,000 Russians live in the northern part of Cyprus, where Kremlin recently said it would open an office to provide consular services.</p><p>Following Russians, other buyers are from Israel, Ukraine and Iran.</p><p>In 2021, Forbes Magazine named İskele/Trikomo as the best place in the world for beachfront property investment for those looking to live or retire abroad. The other four top spots listed by Forbes were in Columbia, Brazil, Mexico and Belize.</p><p>Property sales are especially noteworthy in İskele/Trikomo, which according to estimates tripled in population in the last ten years.</p><p>“Especially in the Long Beach area in İskele/Trikomo, 90-95 per cent of our clients are foreigners,” says real estate sales representative Özder Özbulut. “The majority of our clients are from Russia.”</p><p>It is not unusual to see billboards advertising homes for sale in Cyrillic in the area.</p><p><b>THE LIRA</b></p><p>The depreciation of the Turkish lira and the economic crisis mean that Turkish Cypriots cannot afford to buy property, especially in areas like İskele/Trikomo, where high demand has spiked prices.</p><p>“Local buyers cannot really take advantage of the investments in Long Beach in İskele/Trikomo,” adds Özbulut. The price of land and property is very high due to high demand by foreigners.”</p><p>The shopkeepers in Trikomo, who recently spoke to the Yenidüzen newspaper, acknowledge that foreigners are now keeping them afloat.</p><p>“The crisis has affected us immensely,” Ayşen Biçici told Yenidüzen. “We would have closed our shops down a long time ago if it were not for the foreigners. The foreigners have kept the local economy alive.”</p><p>“Locals are not buying anything,” said Meycan Rıylı. “They come into the shop, ask for the price of things, and leave without buying anything. I can say that recently our sales are entirely to foreigners. If it were not for the foreigners, I would have closed my shop down a long time ago.”</p><p><b>DISPLACED GREEK CYPRIOTS</b></p><p>The land in İskele/Trikomo area is almost entirely owned by Greek Cypriots, who were displaced in 1974.</p><p>Recently, Yeni Bakış newspaper reported that most of the property recently being sold to foreigners in the northern part of Cyprus is on Greek Cypriot land. Citing data released at the end of July, the paper said that 4,209 properties were listed for sale in Kyrenia, Trikomo, Famagusta, Nicosia, Morphou and Lefka – out of which only 975 had a Turkish Cypriot title deed. The rest were Greek Cypriot properties.</p><p>Recently, Greek Cypriot media has reported that the government of the Republic of Cyprus is considering legal measures to deal with the sale of Greek Cypriot properties in the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>In a speech he gave to mark the closing of the 2022-2023 judicial year in June, judge Fadil Aksun, who is the head of the Nicosia High Criminal Court, made a stark warning about the large amounts of money coming into the northern part of Cyprus for real estate purchases.</p><p>“Large amounts of money are coming into the country, but there is no control over whether a real estate purchase indeed takes place,” said Aksun. “I would like to draw attention to the fact that there is a risky money circulation in our country.”</p><p>Aksun added that the court determined 12 flats purchased as part of a money laundering scheme in the 2022-2023 judicial year. The flats were seized.</p><p><b>OTHER ISSUES</b></p><p>The endless construction in İskele/Trikomo is giving rise to problems, as necessary infrastructure is not in place to accommodate the thousands moving into the new buildings. The biggest problem is the sewerage.</p><p>Last summer, photographs surfaced on social media of raw sewage in the sea off Long Beach and green water on the coast. Earlier this month, an analysis by health officials in the same area found potentially dangerous levels of intestinal enterococci, a bacteria characteristically found in human faecal matter.</p><p>“Wastewater and the ensuing seawater pollution in İskele are environmental disasters that have arisen from years of unplanned development,” says Sibel Paralik, head of the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Environmental Engineers.</p><p>Another problem is the significant water shortage, which İskele/Trikomo mayor Hasan Sadıkoğlu says is due to the rapid increase in population.</p><p>The lack of planning coupled with such an influx of foreign population has not only lead to infrastructure problems but also integration problems.</p><p>“There are serious insufficiencies in terms of the orientation, integration, language learning, and education of the foreigners who buy properties and start living here,” says Sadıkoğlu. “There are not enough classrooms. Teachers have a difficult time because the children don’t speak Turkish.”</p><p>Last month the Turkish Cypriot Teachers Union KTÖS said according to a survey it conducted in 72 primary schools, 62 per cent of the schools do not offer language support for students who don’t know Turkish.</p><p>“In at least 15 primary schools, ten per cent of students are foreigners and don’t speak Turkish,” the union stated. “The school with the highest percentage of foreign students is in İskele, with 40 per cent. In many places in the world, foreign students cannot make up more than ten per cent of a classroom and they are offered special programmes. In our country, some classrooms are made up of 40-50 per cent foreigners. There are no orientation programmes for them. This will inevitably lead to irreversible problems.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/08/27/property-sales-in-north-going-unchecked/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/08/27/property-sales-in-north-going-unchecked/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-21271655429993716622023-12-05T16:32:00.003+03:002023-12-05T16:32:37.053+03:00Ergun Olgun: too yielding or too hardline?<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>August 13, 2023</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><i>Speculation over the reasons for resignation of Turkish Cypriot leader’s representative</i></b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXw4fcllkNmfELhMNrKkXt88oV3Eg8jc3DUJGh4_gp1ghSTiesGT2xFNAlDO85aXEdS0ZugGLTJr1Ntm0VBg3JTKV2hfIrf-H13zkxCjUlnbUZ2w16fIlGA2sKIuQu_G69_Bmpa_LS_I2gv2cRUNACkNe_CldQB9iWThXXkIXBSiuGN2VdBbry8o5P7UA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="971" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXw4fcllkNmfELhMNrKkXt88oV3Eg8jc3DUJGh4_gp1ghSTiesGT2xFNAlDO85aXEdS0ZugGLTJr1Ntm0VBg3JTKV2hfIrf-H13zkxCjUlnbUZ2w16fIlGA2sKIuQu_G69_Bmpa_LS_I2gv2cRUNACkNe_CldQB9iWThXXkIXBSiuGN2VdBbry8o5P7UA" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Ergun Olgun</b><p></p><p>The Turkish Cypriot leader’s special representative Ergun Olgun recently unexpectedly resigned, sparking speculation that he was no longer seen fit for the job by Turkey. However, there are conflicting arguments over whether he was seen too yielding for a Turkey that has been insisting on a two-state solution in Cyprus; or whether he was seen too hardline for a Turkey that is recently signalling a more constructive stance.</p><p>Ergun Olgun, the 80-year-old die-hard advocate of an independent Turkish Cypriot state and the constant right hand of all hardline leaders from the late Rauf Denktash to Dervish Eroglu to the current Ersin Tatar, cited old age and said he was retiring rather than resigning.</p><p>“I am 80 years old. I don’t know how many more healthy years I have left. I want to spend time with my family,” he told the media, denying rumours of any disagreements on the Cyprus issue with Tatar or Turkey.</p><p>His resignation came a month after he was harshly criticised by ultra-nationalist circles for disclosing at a panel at Famagusta’s Eastern Mediterranean University DAU, that the Turkish side had abandoned its condition that the unilaterally declared Turkish Cypriot state – the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus TRNC’ – be recognised by the United Nations Security Council.</p><p>“We have right now passed beyond that link about a Security Council decision, and we have conveyed this to the Greek Cypriot side,” Olgun said at a panel on Turkey’s Foreign Policy in the Mediterranean. “We said…negotiations between the two sides can begin without that link, or condition… This is not something we made public, but we can say it in a closed setting… We are looking for ways to find alternative formulas.”</p><p>He was responding to former negotiator and leader of the People’s Party HP, Kudret Ozersay, who, at the same panel, criticised the Turkish side of setting the condition that the UN Security Council recognises the Turkish Cypriot state before starting any kind of negotiations. This condition was tabled by the Turkish side during an informal meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Geneva in April 2021.</p><p>“Where did you find the right to abandon our national policy, which is to demand that the UN Security Council acknowledges our sovereign equality and equal international status?” asked ultra nationalist Sabahattin Ismail in his column in the daily Kibris after the recording of the panel was uploaded on YouTube. “Is Turkey and President Tatar aware of this?… What kind of an insanity is it to say one thing to the people and then compromise from the national policy behind closed doors?”</p><p>To ward off speculation that the special representative had left his post as a punishment for making this revelation or even this compromise, Tatar and Olgun gave a joint interview to the semi-official news agency TAK, constantly repeating they had no problems or disagreements. This only served to amplify the rumours. During the interview, the two also reiterated that the negotiations can only start with the acknowledgment of sovereign equality and equal international status.</p><p>“There were those, who were not comfortable with Ergun Olgun, and who even did not find him enough of a Turkish nationalist or pro-TRNC and kept attacking,” wrote journalist Serhat Incirli in the daily Yeniduzen. “And Ersin Tatar could protect Ergun Olgun. He didn’t.”</p><p>Other observers, however, underline that a small window of opportunity may have opened for Cyprus due to Ankara’s recent interest in reconciling with the European Union after the Turkish presidential elections and draw attention to the fact that Olgun’s resignation comes at a time of a seeming slight shift in Turkey’s position vis a vis the Cyprus problem.</p><p>In a recent statement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not only referenced the Annan Plan and expressed hope for a lasting and just peace in Cyprus, but he also spoke of a renewed rapprochement with the EU especially on visa-free travel and the customs union.</p><p>“We will not hesitate to take responsibility for the island of Cyprus to achieve a lasting and just peace,” said Erdogan following a cabinet meeting in Ankara. “We have shown our sincerity on this issue in every process up to now, including the Annan Plan, and we will [do it] again if necessary.”</p><p>Erdogan mentioned his meetings with world leaders including US President Joe Biden, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and French President Emmanuel Macron at the recent Vilnius Nato summit and said: “We have seen during these meetings that we have no problems with any country that cannot be solved. Provided that dialogue and diplomacy are given a chance, we believe that misunderstandings will be overcome, and disagreements will be solved.”</p><p>Shortly after President Erdogan, Turkish National Defence Minister Yasar Guler called for a fair and permanent solution to the Cyprus problem.</p><p>“The immediate solution of the Cyprus problem through securing the legitimate interests and security of Turkish Cypriots is one of the most important priorities of our country,” he said. “We have cannot afford to lose another 50 years on this. Our wish is that…a strong will is put forward for the peaceful, equal, and fair solution of the Cyprus problem, based on international law…”</p><p>Asked about a possible policy change by Turkey vis a vis Cyprus, Turkish Cypriot leader Tatar was in full denial.</p><p>“The policy that we are pursuing is the correct policy,” he told the media. “AKP [Justice and Development Party] and MHP [Nationalist Movement Party] are supporting this policy. There can be no turning back after this point. This is now an established policy.”</p><p>Underlining that the fact that elections in Turkey are over also provides for a greater room for manoeuvre. Fikri Toros, a deputy from the main opposition Republican Turkish Party CTP, says he expects some movement in the Cyprus issue as of autumn this year when the UN General Assembly will be held.</p><p>“I believe that the fact that Turkey has prioritised the revival of its relations with the EU and the US will open a new window of opportunity for the solution of the Cyprus problem,” says Toros.</p><p>Former negotiator Ozdil Nami agrees:</p><p>“Turkey had to keep its guard up… before the elections in Turkey. Turkey backtracking to this extent in the Cyprus issue was not rational. It was about internal politics. It was aimed at winning the elections. And that has happened.”</p><p>Nami added that Tatar would change his current hardline policy with just a phone call from Turkey.</p><p>It is not unprecedented for Turkish Cypriot negotiators or special representatives to suddenly change when there is a shift in Turkey’s Cyprus policy. In 2014, during Dervish Eroglu’s leadership, Turkish Cypriot hardline negotiator Osman Ertug was replaced with Kudret Ozersay. This was seen as an indication of Ankara’s willingness to keep the process alive and even bypass Eroglu following the joint statement of February 2014.</p><p>Days after his resignation, Olgun warned against a Greek Cypriot aim to extort concessions from Turkey by exploiting its possible desire to improve relations with Brussels and said it is impossible for Turkey to change its Cyprus policy.</p><p>The coming days will demonstrate the true reasons of Olgun’s departure as the person to replace him will bear the hints of the course Turkey will want to take in the Cyprus problem.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/08/13/ergun-olgun-too-yielding-or-too-hardline/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/08/13/ergun-olgun-too-yielding-or-too-hardline/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-81941959694309964942023-12-05T16:28:00.005+03:002023-12-05T16:28:51.641+03:00Anger over administration-sanctioned Quran courses in north<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>July 30, 2023</b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p><b><i>Secularism under threat as summer courses for children offered in mosques</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNtEdi7SZZVtkwQ4sQTbRs37ITu_Lsk-y_reVrXo2DD1KksnfaP1Qp53oRHXSLzq9ERrSb40DlgTPnxfSULaOxrt8Mnsot_1sRnVH7KPrqwZlKy2w1pMNH06COt4Ycwh0S9WWKOajDY0Dwd8_qJCZYotDFXmtu4kmMf7MYalUh6CM2TPN0lYoXukCth2A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNtEdi7SZZVtkwQ4sQTbRs37ITu_Lsk-y_reVrXo2DD1KksnfaP1Qp53oRHXSLzq9ERrSb40DlgTPnxfSULaOxrt8Mnsot_1sRnVH7KPrqwZlKy2w1pMNH06COt4Ycwh0S9WWKOajDY0Dwd8_qJCZYotDFXmtu4kmMf7MYalUh6CM2TPN0lYoXukCth2A" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Children in a mosque receiving instruction in the Quran during their summer break (Yeniduzen)</b><p></p><p>“Today, the tyranny of secularism [in the northern part of Cyprus] has matched the tyranny of Greek Cypriots. This secularist tyranny…must end now.”</p><p>These were the words of Ali Yıldız, the president of the Turkish trade union Diyanet-Sen, which represents employees of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Turkey. Yıldız was reacting to the backlash in the secular and modern Turkish Cypriot community against Quran courses targeting minors in mosques during the summer.</p><p>Online Turkish Cypriot newspaper Bugun Kıbrıs revealed that the Turkish Cypriot education authorities had given permission for children to be taught the Quran by imams in mosques during the summer break.</p><p>In recent years, Quran courses were being offered illegally in mosques by imams without the permission of the Turkish Cypriot education department, which feared the reaction of the Turkish Cypriot community. Police occasionally raided these courses. As revealed by Bugun Kıbrıs, the Turkish Cypriot education department now seems to have bent under the pressure, and on July 3 gave official permission for Quran courses for children at mosques.</p><p>In 2021, the Turkish Cypriot constitutional court had ruled that Quran courses cannot be organised without the permission, supervision and control of the Turkish Cypriot education department, drawing the fury of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.</p><p>“We will never tolerate steps that impede the Quran education of our children in northern Cyprus,” Erdogan had responded and urged the Turkish Cypriots to fully adopt Turkey’s practices on religious education.</p><p>“The notion of secularism is not what they imagine it to be and northern Cyprus is not France,” he had asserted.</p><p>The Bugun Kıbrıs newspaper ran photos of young boys and head-scarved girls attending these courses, where they are offered fruit juices, ice cream and other sweets. It also reported that the imams could, every now and then, be heard shouting at the children.</p><p>The courses are especially appealing to lower-income families, who need to go to work and do not want to leave their children alone at home during the summer months.</p><p>The Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition and the education department was under heavy criticism from the media, civil society organisations, opinion leaders and some politicians for giving permission for the Quran courses.</p><p>“The education ministry is committing a crime by allowing minors to be taught by imams with no pedagogical formation, who deceive and brainwash them with ice cream,” stated Selma Eylem, head of the Cyprus Turkish Secondary School Teachers Union Ktoeos.</p><p>Calling this an attempt to make Quran courses a part of formal education, Eylem added that these courses are part of the social engineering being carried out by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party AKP.</p><p>While most Turkish Cypriots consider themselves Sunni Muslims, they practise a very peaceful and moderate version of Islam in contrast with the Turks of Turkey. Among the most liberal Muslims globally, Turkish Cypriots are not influenced by organised religion, rarely attend mosques, and adhere to a very strict form of secularism. The Turkish Cypriot constitution safeguards secularism in the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>Mine Atli, head of the Social Democracy Party TDP, agrees that the Quran courses at mosques are part of the efforts of Ankara to change the secular characteristic of the Turkish Cypriot community.</p><p>“All this is being done under the name of ‘freedom of religion,’ but these courses are completely based on Sunni Islam,” says Atlı. “We will not remain silent in the face of this crime committed against our children. We will not let our country drown in the darkness of AKP.”</p><p>“Education should be given at schools by teachers,” the main opposition Republican Turkish Party CTP said in a written statement. “We are against reactionary impositions and illegal practices aimed at social engineering.”</p><p>In recent years there is an undeniable Islamisation in the northern part of Cyprus with the Turkish government providing significant support to Sunni Islamic activities here. Consequent economic protocols signed between the Turkish Cypriot administration and Ankara introduce conditions that constantly aim to consolidate the role of Islam in Turkish Cypriot society from strengthening the religious affairs department, to organising religious youth camps to building more theology schools, religious complexes, tekkes and shrines.</p><p>The backlash in the Turkish Cypriot community against the Quran courses grew even bigger with the statements of Diyanet-Sen president Yıldız from Turkey, who continued:</p><p>“49 years ago, the Turkish army risked their own lives and protected… our [Turkish] Cypriot brothers from the Greek invasion and the Greek Cypriot tyranny… Now a group in the northern part of Cyprus, which characterises itself as secular, and which has a mentality parallel to that of Greeks, is trying to eliminate all religious beliefs and values from public space, including education. What needs to be fought against is this mentality. Not those, who teach and study our glorious book Quran.”</p><p>A few days later another provincial head of Diyanet-Sen, Mehmet Akif Gerboga added flames to the fire by stating:</p><p>“The tyranny of this group, which is an enemy of Islam…is the same as the tyranny of Greek Cypriots. The tyranny of this group, which poses as secular, should end… We believe that the Turkish Cypriot people deserve neither the tyranny of Greeks nor this group, which has no national or moral values.”</p><p>Underlining that secularism is not only safeguarded in the Turkish Cypriot constitution but also the Turkish constitution since 1937, former ombudswoman and retired judge Emine Dizdarlı, said no one has the right to meddle with and attack the Turkish Cypriot way of life.</p><p>“Secularism is not tyranny, it is civilisation,” asserted Kudret Ozersay, head of the People’s Party HP, on his social media account. “It is the safeguard of all freedoms, and mainly freedom of religion and faith. Nobody has the right to present the secularism of Turkish Cypriots as blasphemousness.”</p><p>Burak Mavis, secretary general of the Cyprus Turkish Teachers Union Ktos, during a press conference last week, said small children are being subjected to religious exploitation at the Quran courses and defined these as part of efforts to institutionalise sharia law.</p><p>Cyprus Turkish Civil Servants Trade Union Ktams head Guven Bengihan agreed:</p><p>“Recently there are attacks against the Turkish Cypriot secular way of life. There are planned efforts to establish an anti-secular system here.”</p><p>“Religious culture and moral knowledge” classes, which basically consists of teaching Sunni Islam became a compulsory subject in Turkish Cypriot schools in 2009, with most teachers coming from Turkey. In 2012 the Hala Sultan theology college was inaugurated. Currently there are plans to establish a second theology college in Famagusta. Turkish financial support has been instrumental in these activities, funnelled via the assistance office at the Turkish embassy in Nicosia.</p><p>Many Turkish Cypriots feel threatened by the Islamic hegemony culminating in more and larger mosques, Quran courses, plans to establish more theological schools, more conservative imams and religion teachers coming from Turkey, the mushrooming religious cults and sects, and attempts to change the Turkish Cypriot education system.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/07/30/anger-over-administration-sanctioned-quran-courses-in-north/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/07/30/anger-over-administration-sanctioned-quran-courses-in-north/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-23645582691169619652023-12-05T16:24:00.002+03:002023-12-05T16:24:09.863+03:00Incompetence reigns in historic Kyrenia renovation works<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>July 16, 2023</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><i>Architects resign as harbour revamp months behind and contract not followed</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" class="placeholder" height="240" id="8d1af7b60df9e" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/transparent.gif" style="background-color: #d8d8d8; background-image: url('https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/materialiconsextended/insert_photo/v6/grey600-24dp/1x/baseline_insert_photo_grey600_24dp.png'); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; opacity: 0.6;" width="320" /></div><br /><b>Businesses have been shuttered during the renovation works which began last December (Yeniduzen)</b><p></p><p>A baffling combination of incompetence and lack of coordination and controls in the renovation and restoration project of the historic Kyrenia harbour has left the site in shambles as the works have halted with no date in sight for their completion.</p><p>The renovation of the Kyrenia harbour, which dates back to the Venetian times, began early last December. The 20 million Turkish lira (about €680 thousand) project comprised of the restoration, maintenance and repair of the building facades and the main street of the harbour, as well as the upgrading of the water supply, sewage, electricity and telephone infrastructure.</p><p>The Turkish Cypriot tourism body responsible for the project said at the time that the works were to be completed by the end of May this year, just in time for the start of the summer season. A series of setbacks including the omission of electricity infrastructure works, and delay in payment for the construction tender pushed the completion date to the end of June. However now, in mid-July, works have halted and there is no explanation of when and how the renovation will be finalised.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" class="placeholder" height="240" id="b8efad015859e" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/transparent.gif" style="background-color: #d8d8d8; background-image: url('https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/materialiconsextended/insert_photo/v6/grey600-24dp/1x/baseline_insert_photo_grey600_24dp.png'); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; opacity: 0.6;" width="320" /></div><br /><b>Concrete has been poured by Kyrenia castle in opposition to the architects’ wishes (Yeniduzen)</b><p></p><p>The latest setback in the project, which has been plagued by inaptitude from the very beginning, came when last week, contrary to the original plan, the main street of the harbour was paved with concrete. This caused an uproar among experts and the public, who argued that the concrete paving amounted to the destruction of one of the most important cultural assets in Cyprus.</p><p>The debate revealed that the stakeholders – such as the body responsible for historic sites – had not been consulted or involved in the project, and that the necessary approvals and permissions regarding the construction and the materials to be used had not been secured. Moreover, the original project drawn by Turkish Cypriot architects Ali Yapıcıoglu and Ali Tekinel had arbitrarily been tampered with during the implementation phase.</p><p>For the paving of the main street, “we had proposed a surface that looked like natural stone with local characteristics,” say the architects, who resigned and quit the works following the most recent setback.</p><p>“They asked us to change that to regular concrete. We said this would be inappropriate as concrete would be incompatible with the historic setting and surroundings of the harbour. We informed them in writing. They didn’t listen.”</p><p>Yapıcıoglu and Tekinel underline that when they submitted their project, they asked the tourism body responsible for the works that the necessary permission be obtained before going ahead with the renovation.</p><p>“These approvals were never obtained,” say the architects. “We insisted that all materials to be used in the project be seen and approved by all stakeholders. This was never done.”</p><p>The architects, who normally should have had the obligation and authority to control the implementation of the project, were also kept at bay from the beginning.</p><p>The uproar regarding the material used to pave the main street of the harbour led the authorities to take the decision to dismantle the concrete and to replace it with stone parquet.</p><p>“However, the contracting company is yet to accept the changes to the project,” says project coordinator Orhan Atasoy from the tourism body.</p><p>The tender for the renovation and restoration project was awarded to the Tosunoglu construction company, which is owned by Hasan Tosunoglu – a deputy from the junior partner Democrat Party (DP) of the Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" class="placeholder" height="240" id="e2bb82c109f16" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/transparent.gif" style="background-color: #d8d8d8; background-image: url('https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/materialiconsextended/insert_photo/v6/grey600-24dp/1x/baseline_insert_photo_grey600_24dp.png'); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; opacity: 0.6;" width="320" /></div><br />The lack of transparency regarding what else in the original project has been arbitrarily changed and what exactly is the project to be implemented from now on is causing a lot of concern.<p></p><p>“It looks like the tourism season will be over, but the renovation will not be,” wrote journalist Cenk Mutluyakalı of one of the most beautiful marinas in the Mediterranean.</p><p>“With the resignation of the architects, the project remains unclaimed and its fate uncertain.”</p><p>Associate professor Ege Uluca Tumer of the Architecture Department and the Urban Research and Development Centre at the Eastern Mediterranean University agrees.</p><p>“This rehabilitation project does not have an owner, or an apparent owner anymore,” she says. “This makes it impossible to correctly discuss which scientific restoration principles or design criteria are being followed in the implementation of this project… This is certain to cause irreversible mistakes. We may see at the end of the day that the work being done is far from restoring the ancient marina in concordance with its history.”</p><p><b><i>Kyrenia harbour businesses on the brink of bankruptcy</i></b></p><p>The halting of the works has pushed the local small businesses in the Kyrenia harbour, home to dozens of restaurants, small hotels, cafes and bars, into desperation.</p><p>The small businesses owners, who have had to close their shops down since the end of last November, made a joint statement last week saying they were “on the brink of bankruptcy”.</p><p>“The project has not been completed on the promised date, and the works have now been halted,” said the business owners, who underlined they were already struggling even before the renovation due to the destructive effects of a two-year-long pandemic and a crippling Turkish economy. “This halt will lead to a very serious injustice and suffering.”</p><p>At the onset of the project, the Turkish Cypriot administration had announced a grant of a total of 2.8 million lira (around €97 thousand) in order to support the businesses. That grant had totally been paid out as of end of May and the administration has announced that there would be no extra compensation.</p><p>The business owners demanded compensation for each month their shop remained closed and threatened to take legal action.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/07/16/incompetence-reigns-in-historic-kyrenia-renovation-works/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/07/16/incompetence-reigns-in-historic-kyrenia-renovation-works/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-3363844143619004212023-12-05T16:19:00.002+03:002023-12-05T16:19:08.886+03:00North’s electricity deal with Turkey as elusive as ever<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>July 2, 2023</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><i>The north suffered a total of 5,277 power cuts in 2022, two times worse than in Pakistan</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" class="placeholder" height="240" id="d31ba356b0b15" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/transparent.gif" style="background-color: #d8d8d8; background-image: url('https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/materialiconsextended/insert_photo/v6/grey600-24dp/1x/baseline_insert_photo_grey600_24dp.png'); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; opacity: 0.6;" width="320" /></div><br /><b>Teknecik power station in the north</b><p></p><p>Plans to create an electricity cable link from Turkey to the northern part of Cyprus are far from transparent, with experts warning that if the interconnection method isn’t implemented, the Turkish Cypriot electricity woes would be worsened rather than alleviated.</p><p>In recent weeks, newly re-elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his vice president Cevdet Yılmaz, who paid separate visits to the island, listed among their priorities an undersea electricity cable project from Turkey to put an end to the power cuts in the north. This was taken as a sign that the project that has been voiced occasionally for the last decade will finally materialise.</p><p>Turkish Cypriots have been suffering from sweltering power cuts mainly due to lack of necessary investments in the electricity infrastructure and frequent fuel shortages. There were a total of 5,277 power cuts in 2022 according to economist Mertkan Hamit, which makes the country two times worse than Pakistan with the worst average monthly electricity supply according to World Bank data.</p><p>Moreover, as electricity is mainly produced using imported fuel oil, high electricity prices due to the volatility in fossil fuel prices, the war in Ukraine and the depreciation of the Turkish lira, are crippling the community. The price of electricity increased by over 190 per cent since the beginning of 2022, according to the figures from the Turkish Cypriot statistics department.</p><p>But will the undersea cable project, which according to Turkish ambassador Metin Feyzioglu, would cost US$780 million (€717 million) solve the problem?</p><p>While the finer details of the cable project have not been made public, experts are expressing concern over the lack of transparency and warning that if the plan is to merely buy electricity from a power generator in Turkey through a one-way system rather than an interconnection permitting a two-way transmission of electricity between Turkey and the north, this would worsen energy supply security and further increase prices.</p><p>“I fear that the project on the table right now might merely be an electricity transfer without interconnectivity,” says Ozdil Nami, who was responsible for the energy dossier in the north between 2018 and 2019.</p><p>“The truth of the matter seems to have changed.”</p><p>There are political difficulties in front of establishing an interconnection with Turkey, as the country is an observer member of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), energy economist and electrical engineer Yusuf Avcıoglu explains to the Cyprus Mail.</p><p>ENTSO-E, which unites European Union member states’ transmission grids, was established by EU countries in 2009 to increase energy supply security. There is a permanent connection between Turkey and the ENTSO-E’s Continental Europe grid since 2015 via Bulgaria and Greece.</p><p>“ENTSO-E is the ultimate arbiter regarding the connection of a third state to the main grid,” says Avcıoglu, who is also the former vice-chairman of the board of directors of the Turkish Cypriot electricity authority Kıb-Tek. “Therefore, ENTSO-E’s permission and approval is needed for any interconnection made by Turkey.”</p><p>According to Avcıoglu, as long as the Cyprus problem remains unresolved, ENTSO-E will not grant a permit to Turkey to make an interconnection with the northern part of Cyprus, and the only method that can be approved and implemented at the moment is the “isolated area feeding” method.</p><p>This is exactly the method the experts are warning against.</p><p>“This means electricity can only be transmitted one way by Turkey to the north through a power generator set up separately from the main grid,” Avcıoglu says. “This is not interconnection. A two-way transmission will be impossible. We would not be able to export the power generated by solar energy.”</p><p>Besides a solar farm, households in the north have the right to set up solar panels and sell to the grid.</p><p>A simple one-way cable rather than an interconnection would be detrimental for the Turkish Cypriot community Nami tells the Cyprus Mail.</p><p>One of the biggest risks is becoming dependent on the electricity supply from Turkey.</p><p>According to reports, the cable from Turkey “will meet one thirds of the total demand. This is a huge share. The smallest problem or failure would make the country plunge into darkness,” says Nami. “On top of that, we would not be able to sell our extra electricity generated by solar panels and the electricity prices would spike because the investment cost of this huge project plus all the operational and other expenses would be reflected in the electricity bills.”</p><p>In this case, it is vital that other alternatives are considered, experts say.</p><p>Caglayan Cesurer, the president of the Cyprus Turkish Electricity Authority Workers Union (EL-SEN), also made a statement warning about the risks or the project.</p><p>“If you connect the north to Turkey through a system which will allow us to buy electricity when needed and to sell electricity when needed, then go ahead,” said Cesurer. “But what you are trying to do here is to set up a system for a one-way purchase from a power generator in Turkey. At all costs, we will never allow a one-way sales agreement with Turkey through a cable.”</p><p>A question that arises at this point is, would Turkey, which has an income of about €2 billion per year as a result of its membership in ENTSO-E, go ahead with an interconnection with the northern part of Cyprus and risk being sanctioned?</p><p>“It is possible,” says Nami. “It is totally up to the political will of Turkey.”</p><p>Nami says that during his tenure in 2018, there was not enough political will on the part of Turkey to push forward with this.</p><p>“Turkish officials wanted to realise the project but also did not want any problems with ENTSO-E.”</p><p>However, Nami also relays to Cyprus Mail that during his meeting with ENTSO-E officials in Brussels the same year, he was told that Turkey would not be massively sanctioned if it went ahead anyway and made an interconnection with the north without ENTSO-E’s permission, as many member countries are benefitting significantly from Turkey’s presence on the grid.</p><p>As the Turkish Cypriot community awaits to find out about the details of the cable project,</p><p>Olgun Amcaoglu, who is currently responsible for the economy and energy dossier in the north, recently told reporters that the Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar “has assured us that there would not be any problems with ENTSO-E”.</p><p>Clearly clueless about the plans, Amcaoglu concluded: “President Erdogan also conveyed to us that they are taking full responsibility.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/07/02/norths-electricity-deal-with-turkey-as-elusive-as-ever/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/07/02/norths-electricity-deal-with-turkey-as-elusive-as-ever/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-1131958317224470392023-12-05T16:13:00.002+03:002023-12-05T16:13:43.832+03:00Sinister intelligence chief named Turkish foreign minister<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>June 11, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>Will have huge impact on northern Cyprus</i></b></p><p><b><i></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><img alt="" border="0" class="placeholder" height="240" id="15ff2f4db8fa1" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/transparent.gif" style="background-color: #d8d8d8; background-image: url('https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/materialiconsextended/insert_photo/v6/grey600-24dp/1x/baseline_insert_photo_grey600_24dp.png'); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; opacity: 0.6;" width="320" /></i></b></div><b><i><br /></i>Turkey's newly appointed Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his predecessor Mevlut Cavusoglu attend a handover ceremony</b><p></p><p>The appointment of Turkey’s secretive intelligence chief as the country’s new foreign minister is a sign that Turkish foreign policy, which has been led through espionage, military measures and talks behind closed doors in the last decade, will continue to override public diplomacy, dialogue and peaceful relations.</p><p>Many analysts agree that Hakan Fidan, 55, who has led the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) since 2010, and has now become the foreign minister, was in the last decade the person shaping the foreign policies of Turkey, from Cyprus to the Middle East to the Balkans and the West.</p><p>Fidan replaced ex-foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won the runoff elections on May 28 in Turkey.</p><p>“The one, who shaped foreign relations in the last decade, the one who fought with the whole world, who burned all the bridges, who formed hostile relations, and for this reason made Turkey pay a heavy economic price, was not the foreign minister,” said Turkish lawyer and political commentator Salim Şen during a TV programme earlier this week. “Nor was it the foreign ministry. Nor the Turkish armed forces. All these were done with Hakan Fidan.”</p><p>International Relations expert and academician Yonca Özdemir believes that Fidan’s recent appointment will only consolidate the security and intelligence-based foreign policy approach of Turkey.</p><p>“For a long time now, foreign relations have been managed through MIT,” says Özdemir. “With this appointment, this reality is materialising and becoming official.”</p><p>Fidan is a graduate of the army forces school and was a non-commissioned officer in the Turkish army. After serving in various government positions including as an adviser and a special envoy to the then-prime minister Erdoğan, he was appointed to head MIT at only 42 years of age. During his 13-year tenure, he transformed and strengthened MIT and elevated it to become the most important actor in Turkish foreign policy along with the presidency.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" class="placeholder" height="240" id="b750718459ec7" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/transparent.gif" style="background-color: #d8d8d8; background-image: url('https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/materialiconsextended/insert_photo/v6/grey600-24dp/1x/baseline_insert_photo_grey600_24dp.png'); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; opacity: 0.6;" width="320" /></div><br /><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><b>Hakan Fidan had a role in the elections which saw former leader Mustafa Akinci lose.</b><p></p><p>International relations expert İpek Borman underlines that Turkey in the last decade has led a securitised foreign policy, under which regular political issues have been transformed into matters of security, thus enabling extraordinary means to be used.</p><p>“Through official rhetoric and actions, many foreign relations issues are elevated to become matters of survival of the state,” says Borman. “Therefore, any action and operation become justified and legitimised.”</p><p>In a securitised geopolitical environment, the main actor is not the foreign ministry but the security apparatus, explains Borman.</p><p>Fidan who has been referred to as “my confidant” by Erdoğan, has been at the centre of many controversial issues.</p><p>In 2012, he led secret talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and became the subject of a terrorism inquiry until Erdoğan changed the law to protect him. In a notorious leaked recording in 2014 of a discussion of top security officials including Fidan, on how to justify an operation in Syria, the voice purportedly of Fidan says: “Now look, my commander, if there is to be justification, the justification is, I send four men to the other side. I get them to fire eight missiles into empty land. That’s not a problem. Justification can be created.” The Turkish government never denied the authenticity of the recording.</p><p>In another incident in 2014, Syria-bound MIT trucks were stopped in southern Turkey. Officials claimed the trucks were carrying humanitarian aid to the Turkmens in Syria, but a newspaper later revealed that the trucks were carrying weapons to the rebel groups fighting against the Syrian government. The prosecutors, police, gendarmerie, and military personnel involved in the stopping of the trucks had their positions changed, were suspended, and some were arrested. Journalists, who reported the incident, were sentenced to prison.</p><p>Fidan was also one of the most discussed names in the coup attempt in 2015, with questions revolving around why the MIT had not informed or warned Erdoğan although it was aware of the plan. Opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu alleged that the coup was a conspiracy planned by the intelligence and the government. Fidan refused to testify before an investigative parliamentary commission regarding the coup attempt.</p><p>The consequences of the securitised policies have also been visible in the northern part of Cyprus, which in recent years, has been witnessing a very heavy-handed control by Turkey.</p><p>“Cyprus is an extremely securitised area,” says Borman. “It is seen as a ‘strategic asset.’ Therefore, the approach here is to do away with any opinion or activity that may undermine this ‘strategic asset’.”</p><p>One investigation has revealed shocking details of threats, pressure and blackmailing by Turkey’s MIT during the 2020 elections against the then Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı in favour of right-wing politician and current leader Ersin Tatar.</p><p>According to the investigation report published in 2021, Akıncı’s private secretary Cenk Gürçağ was invited to meet with the MIT officials, where he was told:</p><p>“The enemy is at the door. We need people, who love Turkey, who will not betray Turkey, who will cooperate with Turkey, to lead this place. We don’t want Akıncı here. He will not win. We will make sure he doesn’t win. Even if he does, nothing will be the same. We know everything about the people close to him. We know every breath they take…”</p><p>The MIT official continued: “I urge you to convey to Akıncı. It will be the best for him, his family, and his close colleagues to withdraw his candidacy. Tell him to announce this on Facebook tonight. We come from the very top. Nobody and nothing is more important than Turkey’s survival.”</p><p>According to the report, after finding out about this threat, Akıncı summoned Turkey’s ambassador to his office. The Turkish ambassador refused saying: “It is Ankara’s orders. I cannot come.”</p><p>“MIT has been working as if it was the one responsible from Cyprus anyway,” says journalist Aysu Basri Akter. “It has been very active. It intervened in elections, it was here on the ground, people were threatened, people were pulled aside and intimidated.”</p><p>Akter, who is one of the ten Turkish Cypriot journalists, writers, and intellectuals, who have been denied entry into Turkey on grounds that they pose a threat to Turkey’s national security, also underlines that the list of banned Turkish Cypriots is prepared by the MIT.</p><p>“We were all told as we were denied entry that there is a MIT report against us,” says Akter. “With Fidan now at the foreign ministry, Turkey’s interventionist approach in Cyprus based on conspiracy theories, deep relations and intelligence will continue.”</p><p>International relations expert and academician Özdemir believes that the oppression in the north will get even worse especially because of the results of the Turkish presidential elections. Some 140,000 Turkish nationals living in the north had the right to go to polls. Opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu won 60 per cent of the votes in the north.</p><p>“I am sure this has been noted somewhere,” says Özdemir. “I am sure the control on the northern part of Cyprus will become even firmer.”</p><p>“The man is not a diplomat, he is a soldier,” stresses Akter. “Turkish foreign policy is being fully surrendered to the hands of deep intelligence and military.”</p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/06/11/sinister-intelligence-chief-named-turkish-foreign-minister/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/06/11/sinister-intelligence-chief-named-turkish-foreign-minister/</a></p><p><b><br /></b></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-6098909426793004752023-12-05T16:08:00.003+03:002023-12-05T16:08:29.981+03:00Easy student visas in north are driving human smuggling<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>May 28, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>Many students never attend university and are either trafficked or enter the Republic</i></b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfgbzwaNUQivCLDJTnnNs1QKuFlnsUWuOgisJArYHVIUtFzX69VdjzHm7IMCNg7SgOlDtfzFm4rM8CNMirBjOaAydlvNLnehB0w982_4ja0Gt_V9IO95zKgzTIn2EC05HJlFtF3P5oRp4l6ZHsqyvD_jXtKqI6GEdgBLB_slmlzLlORR44qKQ-82RzSxE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="880" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfgbzwaNUQivCLDJTnnNs1QKuFlnsUWuOgisJArYHVIUtFzX69VdjzHm7IMCNg7SgOlDtfzFm4rM8CNMirBjOaAydlvNLnehB0w982_4ja0Gt_V9IO95zKgzTIn2EC05HJlFtF3P5oRp4l6ZHsqyvD_jXtKqI6GEdgBLB_slmlzLlORR44qKQ-82RzSxE" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>A group arrested while conspiring to smuggle people to the Republic (Yeniduzen)</b></div><p>The ease with which student visas are issued, the inadequate legal framework, and the general lack of controls in the northern part of Cyprus is increasing human smuggling and trafficking through universities.</p><p>There are 22 universities there, which has a population of less than 500,000, hosting some 104,000 students on paper. Close to half of these students are from third countries in the Arabian Peninsula, Africa, Middle East, and Far East. They come to the northern part of Cyprus on a student visa, which is very easy to get.</p><p>All any prospective student needs to do is to make an online application to any of the universities, pay the fee and register, explains education expert and academic Salih Sarpten. Once they are registered with a university, they get a plane ticket and arrive at Ercan/Tymbou airport, where they are given a one-year student visa when they show the printout of the proof of the university registration.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyzzHxuW4GG1e5vBHRYKFVL-9EtSk2aHHnHA11pG5BRemSbgkEu5KRbrrsTZk8ZAtUZuJhmGupWA1Mi6PBB-meqwUUG3fpz6m1s0bKiAeJu193ivl0nwHQy2B1P6QMHoMBlIOC30ggnNnzk_QI48QWdo_iKDXfhL0QXHp0T56kdZC_OdMTXUEaBIICMVQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="880" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyzzHxuW4GG1e5vBHRYKFVL-9EtSk2aHHnHA11pG5BRemSbgkEu5KRbrrsTZk8ZAtUZuJhmGupWA1Mi6PBB-meqwUUG3fpz6m1s0bKiAeJu193ivl0nwHQy2B1P6QMHoMBlIOC30ggnNnzk_QI48QWdo_iKDXfhL0QXHp0T56kdZC_OdMTXUEaBIICMVQ" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Young men arrested while trying to cross the Green Line and into the Republic (Yeniduzen)</b><p></p><p>“Once they are in the country, there is no mechanism to check where they are or what they are doing,” says Sarpten. This coupled with the inadequate legal framework has allowed many students to “disappear”.</p><p>“A considerable number of new students on the list handed to the academics at the beginning of the year, are missing from the classroom,” said Sarpten.</p><p>Fezile Osum, who is the Anti-Trafficking and Refugee Rights programme coordinator at the Turkish Cypriot Human Rights Platform, underlines that these students are largely in the hands of human traffickers and human smugglers.</p><p>Nazim Cavusoglu, who is responsible for the education dossier, recently told the AFP news agency that there are some 15,000 “passive” students, who have entered the country on a student visa, but are not attending any classes. Sarpten believes the number of students unaccounted for is no less than 30,000.</p><p>“Thirty per cent of the total number of students is missing,” said Sarpten. “Which suggests that they are either employed in the black economy; they are in the hands of human traffickers engaged in illegal activities such as sex or drugs trafficking; or they have already found their way into the European Union” through human smugglers across the porous Green Line dividing the island.</p><p>The higher education sector, which is one of the main engines of the Turkish Cypriot economy, has grown in an uncontrolled fashion in the last two decades as the policy has been to open as many universities and attract as many foreign students as possible.</p><p>“Higher education here is an economic sector,” says Sarpten. “Universities survive not on science, research, or patents, but on the money from students.”</p><p>This has led universities, some of which are owned by big businessmen, who in some cases also own casinos, to work with agents to find prospective students mainly from impoverished third countries and bring them to the universities. In return they get a commission.</p><p><b><i>Human trafficking</i></b></p><p>The ease with which student visas are issued, and lack of controls or supervision over whether individuals on a student visa are indeed going to school, have given rise to malicious agents, who take advantage of the system to exploit students. According to the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report in 2022, in many cases, these agents falsely promise students low tuition fees, accommodation and access to good jobs in an EU member state. Once in the northern part of Cyprus, they end up being exploited as cheap labour, or forced into prostitution or drug trafficking.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvieQ3-2_e3wjvUT_NnPQBYS8fDoS9juvn6msjDS71tAqwkn7Zf4ViS2wgyRbH09s82Ou_iCpfYMe71kpo4KD_ItIT4rV1KVxWJnUpeczLzc5KCW58ZiYXr3zYNxahbE5BmEk9mfEj4kbrwTJrZaz4wnOJ3s15ROJyDD3gm0819CEFwB9Jm_IePSzj-T4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="880" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvieQ3-2_e3wjvUT_NnPQBYS8fDoS9juvn6msjDS71tAqwkn7Zf4ViS2wgyRbH09s82Ou_iCpfYMe71kpo4KD_ItIT4rV1KVxWJnUpeczLzc5KCW58ZiYXr3zYNxahbE5BmEk9mfEj4kbrwTJrZaz4wnOJ3s15ROJyDD3gm0819CEFwB9Jm_IePSzj-T4" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Two Bangladeshis on student visas arrested after trying to enter the Republic (Yeniduzen)</b><p></p><p>Osum explained that out of 23 identified human trafficking victims in 2022, 18 of them had entered the island with student visas.</p><p>Last year, a Turkish rights group and the Nigerian National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), published a communique calling the northern part of Cyprus a “heaven for the traffickers who operate unrestrained”.</p><p>“Students can receive visas mostly with just a proof of university registration,” the communique explained. “It has been understood that the human traffickers have been abusing this procedure.”</p><p>The student visa can easily be renewed by re-registering in different higher education institutions while on the island.</p><p><b>Human smuggling</b></p><p>Human smugglers also exploit the ungoverned higher education sector to offer young people on a student visa a path to Europe.</p><p>“Not all of these students come here to study,” said Sarpten. “A significant number of them want to leave the difficult conditions in their countries… They take advantage of the simple student visa procedure to come here, and once they are here, they try to find ways to get into the Republic of Cyprus or other European Union member states.”</p><p>“We witness this a lot in the field,” Osum agreed. “Because student visas are very easy to get, the students come here to the north, and then cross to the south with the help of smugglers. We also know that the people applying for asylum in the Republic of Cyprus are mostly those, who arrive on the island using universities and student visas.”</p><p>Figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirm this trend. From January to March 2023, some 3,182 persons have applied for asylum in the Republic of Cyprus.</p><p>“It is etablished that the vast majority of the asylum seekers in Cyprus arrive via the north,” UNHCR communications officer Emilia Strovolidou told the Sunday Mail.</p><p>Strovolidou explained that as of 2020, increased numbers of refugees and migrants from Africa and Asia arrive by air in the northern part of Cyprus on student visas and then clandestinely cross to the Republic of Cyprus to apply for asylum. </p><p>In fact, last August, two Bangladeshi nationals were held up around the Yigitler Burcu/Roccas (Kaytaz) Bastion in Nicosia as they were attempting to cross to the Republic of Cyprus. The two men had paid smugglers €6,000 each and had been brought to the north on student visas issued in their names after they were registered in a university. For another €150 each, they were taken to the Yigitler Burcu and instructed to cross the Green Line to the Republic of Cyprus. Police believe the same smugglers have brought 322 Bangladeshis to the northern part of Cyprus through this scheme during the 2021-2022 academic year by registering them with five different higher education institutions.</p><p>“There is no population policy,” Sarpten emphasised. “There is no higher education policy. There is no policy on how many foreign students will be admitted in universities. There are no university entry criteria. All this is an invitation for the human traffickers and human smugglers.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/05/28/easy-student-visas-in-north-are-driving-human-smuggling/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/05/28/easy-student-visas-in-north-are-driving-human-smuggling/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-91308849597041307762023-12-05T16:03:00.001+03:002023-12-05T16:03:10.146+03:00Varosha hotel sales could just be the start<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>May 7, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>Commentators in the north say the three properties reported to be sold this week could lead to legal amendments so more could follow</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUdNsqYujmj6CKWj2jvgnHk_VH8Z48dSdIjiG4jXmrybM4JIhoQqxwvhrjhkmkk0eV5NM8GkYP83Of5vUlJvMQ6fWrh5mXiY0KQef2MAPOoaVoH0F7rIsnlkMGDZaCuxrnJsQcrU27C-UUONZR6EqKzsu474E9oIYGP8YwysEby7bnUyrt_iGpd0Bw130" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1472" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUdNsqYujmj6CKWj2jvgnHk_VH8Z48dSdIjiG4jXmrybM4JIhoQqxwvhrjhkmkk0eV5NM8GkYP83Of5vUlJvMQ6fWrh5mXiY0KQef2MAPOoaVoH0F7rIsnlkMGDZaCuxrnJsQcrU27C-UUONZR6EqKzsu474E9oIYGP8YwysEby7bnUyrt_iGpd0Bw130" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Hotels on the beach front in Varosha</b><p></p><p><br /></p><p>The agreement made for the purchase of three hotels in Varosha between a Turkish Cypriot businessman and their Greek Cypriot owners appears to have no validity and is most probably an attempt to push for legal amendments in the north to open the way for the sale of properties in the fenced-off city.</p><p>A Turkish Cypriot newspaper recently reported that a Turkish Cypriot businessman bought the Cleo Hotel, the Golden Seaside Apartment Hotel, the Aegean Hotel and two apartment building floors in Varosha from their Greek Cypriot owners.</p><p>However, lawyer Murat Metin Hakkı, who specialises in property cases, clarified to the Cyprus Mail, that the agreement between the Turkish Cypriot businessman and the Greek Cypriot owners stipulates that the ownership of the hotels will be transferred to the businessman only if the Immovable Property Commission (IPC), which is the sole authorised body to approve Greek Cypriot property sales in the north, approves the sale within one year.</p><p>“If it is not approved by the IPC within a year, the agreement will be null and void,” Hakkı said.</p><p>In fact, IPC chairwoman Növber Ferit Vechi confirmed that they received an application on Thursday regarding the sale of the hotels. She clarified that no sale transactions had yet been made through the commission and added that the application was sent back due to missing documents.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipUoui51XqRhDskbnOYHUBmoPfk-WyQo5jvzbYcC4Hg29gIu8ONgZGzNYK6M7XiQKDLqClCbJPJWcnORPtxyrJ8jmxSD89iDBGAHBamGGqaBQZ7gjyKjhX1g1wTom5fbevyyskRxadSlivQMi9kQYGeIuoPkZIZkPHS8yTQPbPTKWLt48JGMGstxCCUcg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1374" data-original-width="2048" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipUoui51XqRhDskbnOYHUBmoPfk-WyQo5jvzbYcC4Hg29gIu8ONgZGzNYK6M7XiQKDLqClCbJPJWcnORPtxyrJ8jmxSD89iDBGAHBamGGqaBQZ7gjyKjhX1g1wTom5fbevyyskRxadSlivQMi9kQYGeIuoPkZIZkPHS8yTQPbPTKWLt48JGMGstxCCUcg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Hotels in Varosha</b><p></p><p>However, the IPC, which is recognised by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as a domestic remedy to property issues in Cyprus arising from the island’s division, has no jurisdiction over military areas in the north including Varosha, lawyer Murat Metin Hakkı said.</p><p>Another way such a property sale could be possible is through a law known as the ‘Acapulco law’ – because it enabled a Turkish Cypriot businessman to buy part of the Acapulco resort in Kyrenia from its original Greek Cypriot owner – that allows the Greek Cypriot owner of a property to reach a sales agreement with the current user and long-term lease holder, according to Hakkı.</p><p>However, “this law doesn’t apply to the agreement in question, since the buyer is not a current user and a long-term lease holder of these properties,” he added. “There is no way the commission can approve this agreement since it involves a military area and is not in line with any local law.”</p><p>Even though the sales agreement appears to have been certified by a notary in the Republic, “this has nothing to do with the substance of the agreement,” Hakkı said. “This is merely a certification of the signatures on the agreement. And the related apostille is the certification of the certification by the notary. None of these constitute official approval of the content of the agreement… Therefore, this agreement has no legal basis whatsoever and is invalid. It’s nothing but writing on ice.”</p><p>This, of course, is only true if the current status of Varosha and the current laws remain unchanged.</p><p>Hakkı believes the reason for making a sales agreement, which, under existing laws, is invalid, may be to push for the change in the military status of Varosha and make the necessary legal arrangements to allow property sales by Greek Cypriots to Turkish Cypriots in the fenced-off city.</p><p>Researcher Mete Hatay agrees. “This is not even a shenanigan,” he says. “This is a cunning way of forcing the authorities to enable such sales, financially and legally”. The buyer “is presenting this as a national cause and saying ‘look, you wanted to Turkify Varosha! The Greek Cypriots are ready to sell all, so do something.’”</p><p>In fact, the Turkish Cypriot businessman quoted in the newspaper on the sale emphasised that he has “earned territory for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” and called the move a “great step” for the breakaway republic.</p><p>“The position of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on Varosha is very clear,” the businessman said. “I don’t expect to be faced with any problems.”</p><p>Feeding the doubts, secretary general of the National Unity Party (UBP), which is the major party of the ruling coalition in the north, Oğuzhan Hasipoğlu in statements to a newspaper on Friday, suggested a “special Varosha law” may be considered.</p><p>The fenced-off city of Varosha has remained a forbidden military zone since August 1974 when its Greek Cypriot population fled from the advancing Turkish army. It is among places to be returned to its lawful former Greek Cypriot inhabitants under the control of the future Greek Cypriot constituent state within the framework of a comprehensive federal solution on the island. However, the Turkish government, with the Turkish Cypriot administration, has partly opened around 3.5 per cent of Varosha since 2020 despite UN resolutions prohibiting the move. Turkish and Turkish Cypriot authorities have since been vocal about plans to take forward the “Varosha opening.”</p><p>Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, commenting on the developments said earlier this week: “We are encouraging Turkish Cypriots and our own citizens to buy if the owners want to sell. It is very important for Turks to take possession of these properties… And we see that the Greek Cypriot people support our policy.”</p><p>Lawyer Hakkı confirmed the same Turkish Cypriot businessman is in the process of signing agreements with Greek Cypriot owners regarding the sale of six other hotels in Varosha.</p><p>“The majority of the Varosha refugees are tired of the status quo,” Hakkı said. “They are inclined to just sell their properties.”</p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/05/07/varosha-hotel-sales-could-just-be-the-start/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/05/07/varosha-hotel-sales-could-just-be-the-start/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-87355820948025676022023-12-05T15:59:00.001+03:002023-12-05T15:59:08.433+03:00Crossing points no barrier to education, life spent on both sides<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>April 23, 2023</b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzM-Hjsk8KDRSwsjaoF9l9iaBdR0vIeTthHRq7UFhNbHcis_UZBRuPIYjNAwivGycYB3gsk8bsZdrS8mrlpVdNh4ZPfKv-jZ67CNp3G3DIHpQBJs3mlOCON28BsY6Jze-UKrKcsUngqHiK2lgrVOLAcMMZTLAG0C0qL-pmqTPCif_O6FAhc-5Vasgjut4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzM-Hjsk8KDRSwsjaoF9l9iaBdR0vIeTthHRq7UFhNbHcis_UZBRuPIYjNAwivGycYB3gsk8bsZdrS8mrlpVdNh4ZPfKv-jZ67CNp3G3DIHpQBJs3mlOCON28BsY6Jze-UKrKcsUngqHiK2lgrVOLAcMMZTLAG0C0qL-pmqTPCif_O6FAhc-5Vasgjut4" width="303" /></a></b></div><b><br />Yasemin has spent almost her whole life moving from one side to the other</b><p></p><p>For Yasemin and her friends, a typical summer Saturday night begins at a bar in north Nicosia and ends at another one in the south. “Or our friends from the south come and join us in the north,” she says casually. “It’s a five-minute walk.”</p><p>At 22, this bubbly, bright young woman belongs to a generation of Turkish Cypriots that does not remember the days when there were no crossing points and travel between the two sides of Cyprus was impossible. Crossing over to the “other side” is the norm for her. She shops for her favourite international brands in the south, travels from Larnaca airport, hangs out with Greek Cypriot friends on either side of the island, and can’t live without an occasional Starbucks coffee, again in the south.</p><p>Yasemin was two years old when travel restrictions between the two sides of the island were eased almost overnight on April 23, 2003. Two days earlier, Serdar Denktaş, who was at the time responsible for the tourism dossier in the north, had caught everyone off guard when he announced during a live broadcast, that the administration he was part of would “open the doors” – a decision probably rooted in unrest in the Turkish Cypriot community and the cases facing Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights.</p><p>At 9.30am on April 23, thousands of Greek and Turkish Cypriots crowded the Ledra Palace, Pyla and Akyar/Strovilia checkpoints crossed to the other side of their own country for the first time in decades.</p><p>“I was apparently in my pushchair,” says Yasemin, whose father is from Limassol and did not lose time to go back to the city where he spent his childhood.</p><p>The numbers crossing gradually increased over the years as more checkpoints opened, the stigma around crossings faded, relationships were built and cheaper prices or more choice on the other side lured shoppers. According to the research by academics Charis Psaltis and Deniz Yucel, since 2003 it is estimated that about 70 per cent of the residents from both communities has crossed at least once to the other side. Last year, Turkish Cypriots used the crossing points 1.9 million times, while Greek Cypriots used them 2.8 million times.</p><p>As a little girl, Yasemin remembers crossing regularly with her parents and grandparents to visit Greek Cypriot friends. At 11 she passed an exam to study at the English School in the south. From then until the age of 18, she travelled every school day the northern coastal town of Kyrenia to Nicosia and then on to school.</p><p>“To me it was the most normal thing,” she said. “I didn’t really realise how crazy it was until I started university and me and my friends started talking about our daily routines back at home. It would really confuse people when I said I had to drive all that way and show my ID to go to school.”</p><p>In those seven years, Yasemin forged friendships with Greek Cypriots, went camping with them in Troodos and had “amazing teachers, who did not care that I am a Turkish Cypriot.”</p><p>Did she not experience any negativity? “Of course, I did,” she said airily. “Once this kid told me to go back to where I am from. And I was like: ‘To where? Limassol?’”</p><p>She laughed and recalled another very “proudly Greek” classmate, who was always cold towards the Turkish Cypriots. “But one day he confessed that he bought his tobacco from the north because it’s cheaper,” she said. “He at least gave us that! He said we have cheap tobacco and he appreciated it!</p><p>“It’s funny,” she added. “It’s the same with us. Even the most right-wing Turkish Cypriots I know also go to the south every week to eat McDonalds or shop for brands.”</p><p>She herself feels she has rather more to be grateful for. Currently studying law at UCL, one of the UK’s top ten universities, she said that is “thanks to my teachers, who put in so much effort on me. If it weren’t for them, I would not be in this school today.”</p><p>How casually she had come to view crossing hit home during Covid, when the checkpoints were again closed. “I would feel trapped,” she said. “Very isolated.</p><p>“My friends were on the other side of the crossing point and for the first time, it wasn’t a five-minute walk anymore. It was weird. I mean, we couldn’t get Starbucks for the whole summer.”</p><p>For friends who crossed over each day to work it was rather more serious. “This very easy disruption of someone’s core daily routine is very difficult to understand and accept,” she said.</p><p>For Yasemin, the crossing points shaped her entire life from the schools she went to, to the way she socialises and views the world. “For me there is no distinction between people based on their background. The other side of the crossing point represents for me a place and people that have witnessed so closely my growth and my personal development. And in that, it is very special.”</p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/04/23/crossing-points-no-barrier-to-education-life-spent-on-both-sides/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/04/23/crossing-points-no-barrier-to-education-life-spent-on-both-sides/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-41401410949673037992023-12-05T15:55:00.002+03:002023-12-05T15:55:19.535+03:00‘Crossings saved my business’<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>April 23, 2023</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhh7yUOa_MbjhH237TyfvRgZTkTmnm_OsfQyTX08yZFw4sPeg7ZiaFyNUHUVwsxzPgQ-1KPtYLPa4fpbqPQVYWc5KBFcNokIqnagIAPNQ9tG7f2TmSEzlZIwT9_IYf7JpYoqXn0B74XQP-jgko2QG3h7JBqIFNGLRXsnPHQU_JmB3_ZoXTOToiCgHxhfv0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="739" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhh7yUOa_MbjhH237TyfvRgZTkTmnm_OsfQyTX08yZFw4sPeg7ZiaFyNUHUVwsxzPgQ-1KPtYLPa4fpbqPQVYWc5KBFcNokIqnagIAPNQ9tG7f2TmSEzlZIwT9_IYf7JpYoqXn0B74XQP-jgko2QG3h7JBqIFNGLRXsnPHQU_JmB3_ZoXTOToiCgHxhfv0" width="183" /></a></b></div><b><br />Öntaç Düzgün and members of his staff</b><p></p><p>Öntaç Düzgün was seriously contemplating closing down his small knitting and wool shop in the heart of the walled city in north Nicosia, when the crossing points opened and turned his business around.</p><p>“We used to sell nothing,” recalls the 66-year-old. “Many others closed down their shops. I would have done the same eventually.”</p><p>With the opening of the first crossing points in 2003, Greek Cypriots, taking advantage of the cheaper prices, started shopping in the north. This meant Düzgün could keep his business afloat. But the big turnaround for him happened in 2008 when the Ledra Street/Lokmacı crossing point opened, funnelling those who crossed almost past his door.</p><p>“Ninety per cent of my customers are Greek Cypriots,” Düzgün said. “The little children, who used to come here holding their parents’ hands when the crossing points first opened, are now young women,” Düzgün says. “And now they come here to say hello and shop.”</p><p>Düzgün, who was taking turns with his wife to attend the shop, had to hire four more people to meet the high demand.</p><p>“And we still are barely enough,” he said, adding proudly: “And all of my staff can communicate in Greek.”</p><p>According to Düzgün, every shop in the north of the walled city now has at least one staff member who can speak Greek. “They either took lessons or learned through daily practice here”.</p><p>Especially with the severe devaluation of the Turkish lira in recent years, the north has become very attractive for Greek Cypriot shoppers, who use euros. The lira lost 44 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2021 and a further 30 per cent in 2022. This has pushed the Turkish Cypriot economy into one of the worst financial crises of history. The Greek Cypriot spending has proven to be a significant contribution to the economy.</p><p>And according to Düzgün, this spending currently amounts to €70,000 daily.</p><p>The total contribution of the crossing points to the north’s economy is around an annual €200 million euros, according to economist Mertkan Hamit, or 12 per cent of Turkish Cypriot GDP.</p><p>But the opening of the crossing points did not only have economic benefits, Düzgün explains. The relations that started with trade have evolved into friendships. “Now I see at least 50 people, who are here daily, just having coffee and mingling with their Turkish Cypriot friends”.</p><p>In fact, repeated studies by academics Charis Psaltis and Deniz Yucel since 2007 show that in both communities, contact enabled by the opening of the crossing points led to the reduction of prejudice, trust building and an increase in will for renewed cohabitation.</p><p>Düzgün, who is originally from Polis in Paphos, was 17-years-old when he had to leave for the north with his family in 1974. The opening of the crossing points also meant he could go back to the house where he spent his childhood and teenage years.</p><p>“I have all my memories in that house, in that neighbourhood,” he said emotionally.</p><p>When he and his brothers found the house, now inhabited by a Greek Cypriot family originally from Yialousa in Rizokarpaso, he had mixed feelings: “something so close to me was now someone else’s private space.</p><p>“They were very kind,” he said with appreciation. “They offered us macun (glyka) and coffee. They said we could take a tour of the house. But we didn’t. That would make us feel like intruders.”</p><p>After this bittersweet experience Düzgün and his brothers have visited their house twice more.</p><p>“Now, even though we go to Polis every couple of months and spend the night there, we don’t go to our house. It would be very rude to go there every time and say ‘this house was ours.’ How many times can we inconvenience the poor family?”</p><p></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/04/23/crossings-saved-my-business/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/04/23/crossings-saved-my-business/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-16475528005716457892023-12-05T15:27:00.006+03:002023-12-05T15:27:46.635+03:00Leader of all Cypriots?<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>March 26, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>In his election campaign President Nikos Christodoulides promised a state policy for Turkish Cypriots. But how well has he been received asks Esra Aygin</i></b></p><p><b><i></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgp3CSBS929IxKQKn3FWFgTA3CyqzUL2CMAD0CtlPPL_wRaW839QsZRKN1ZrGR4bqzylELyTBNMwOiu_rTjCGslvhY99_DL7eaSLILDdxGFbyjQ2n8xFwhALWQt5yKEvT-cAibjaC3eN3npQBv-xQRdlDyKs1x4TJf_rA2dZAapkOq619BeDScS8iULd6Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1319" data-original-width="2048" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgp3CSBS929IxKQKn3FWFgTA3CyqzUL2CMAD0CtlPPL_wRaW839QsZRKN1ZrGR4bqzylELyTBNMwOiu_rTjCGslvhY99_DL7eaSLILDdxGFbyjQ2n8xFwhALWQt5yKEvT-cAibjaC3eN3npQBv-xQRdlDyKs1x4TJf_rA2dZAapkOq619BeDScS8iULd6Q" width="320" /></a></i></b></div><b><i><br /></i></b>At a time of no tangible prospects for the resumption of negotiations to solve the Cyprus problem, growing oppression by Turkey and a crippling economic crisis, the Turkish Cypriot community is hoping that new President Nikos Christodoulides can take some steps to ease the grind of their daily lives.<p></p><p>But Christodoulides faces distrust from pro-solution Turkish Cypriots because of his role as minister in the previous Nicos Anastasiades government, which has a history of scandals and corruption and has been blamed for the failure of the latest round of negotiations. His election with the support of anti-federation parties has also led to distrust in the north. On the other hand, the fact that the newly elected president’s election programme included a well-structured state policy for Turkish Cypriots has created a cautious optimism.</p><p>Christodoulides, supported by Diko, Edek, the Solidarity Movement and Dipa – parties that take a hard line on reunification talks – won the second round of presidential elections on February 12, garnering 51.97 per cent of the votes. His rival Andreas Mavroyiannis was supported by Akel.</p><p>In the campaign, Christodoulides promised measures for the political and economic integration of Turkish Cypriots into the EU; the encouragement of civil society; the economic integration of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots; the neutralisation of separatist actions; and the encouragement of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot solution forces.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7XvpVMDfekKL2IEPM76X0Eo51lzWiGXbNZjWd2dbcpBMrndhONwmFwuzCoj8li3GiFh4MWqXFfcds44zcIwPNbwm610B4RAbfo7xWIXKWfDStWb-Xv6AKFNr_aQ8vmqLgFCQAH4tiFI6UbuV_wNW-1fuanRsCtN_i3JfPdySRHrI20b-mgCHwZx8cGK4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="672" data-original-width="1024" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7XvpVMDfekKL2IEPM76X0Eo51lzWiGXbNZjWd2dbcpBMrndhONwmFwuzCoj8li3GiFh4MWqXFfcds44zcIwPNbwm610B4RAbfo7xWIXKWfDStWb-Xv6AKFNr_aQ8vmqLgFCQAH4tiFI6UbuV_wNW-1fuanRsCtN_i3JfPdySRHrI20b-mgCHwZx8cGK4" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Turkish Cypriots demonstrating about cyprus nationality last year </b><p></p><p>“We are founding partners and citizens of the Republic of Cyprus. We want Christodoulides to defend the rights of Turkish Cypriots as much as he defends the rights of Greek Cypriots,” general secretary of the Cyprus Turkish Teachers Trade Union KTÖS Burak Maviş said. “Turkish Cypriots are EU citizens regardless of a solution on the island”.</p><p>Underlining that the rights and freedoms of Turkish Cypriots are being threatened by an increasingly authoritarian Ankara and its Turkish Cypriot collaborators, Maviş said, “We are oppressed in the north and have difficulty exercising our rights in the south. We are sandwiched between the two.”</p><p>The current hard-line Turkish Cypriot leadership, which endorses a two-state solution, may be expecting Christodoulides to recognise the existence of two equal sovereign states on the island but ordinary peoples’ expectations are steps that would help reduce their dependence on Turkey, reinvigorate the economy, and build trust between the communities.</p><p>Maviş said this is possible through assisting the Turkish Cypriots to integrate more into the EU socially, educationally, and culturally. These would include steps like removing the obstacles for Turkish Cypriot children of mixed marriages getting Cyprus citizenship; easing the crossings; improving the Green Line Regulation for the movement of persons, products and services across the divide; allowing Turkish Cypriots to be included in EU educational programmes such as Erasmus+; adding Turkish to the EU languages; and making it possible for Turkish Cypriots to open bank accounts and companies in the Republic.</p><p>“The Republic of Cyprus is pushing Turkish Cypriots to seek solutions in Turkey – a country they call ‘the invader,’” Maviş continued. “They are pushing Turkish Cypriots to get Turkish passports to be able to travel, to open accounts in Turkish banks to be able to do business, or to go to Turkey to study, play sports, participate in competitions. This is racist and discriminatory. They are violating the rights of people, who are pro solution and would say yes in a referendum.”</p><p>Maviş said he shared these suggestions with Christodoulides when the president visited KTÖS during his election campaign.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghojHniCQNcryarTbUCw81bfyOHVtXh6ZEK9iDpoXLVz-JOBt01pgpUPRPIoker1xDrEewbg0-tugSZDALw-cZxCD8m-Jo3FMfFraXgDIYD4l4dycfuap9JnU0LZ97WW3PL_2T9ix8x9MO0IBBShPgkxYcRtVuqu4M4-XbccyYnwSfVfQJ4vS7JSfkTbE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1278" data-original-width="1920" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghojHniCQNcryarTbUCw81bfyOHVtXh6ZEK9iDpoXLVz-JOBt01pgpUPRPIoker1xDrEewbg0-tugSZDALw-cZxCD8m-Jo3FMfFraXgDIYD4l4dycfuap9JnU0LZ97WW3PL_2T9ix8x9MO0IBBShPgkxYcRtVuqu4M4-XbccyYnwSfVfQJ4vS7JSfkTbE" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Burak Maviş of the Cyprus Turkish Teachers Trade Union KTÖS </b><p></p><p>“These steps would revive hopes for solution, expose the nationalists, who say ‘Greek Cypriots do not want us’, build trust between the two communities, and reduce dependence on Turkey,” he added.</p><p>Turkish Cypriot international relations expert and academic İpek Borman agrees that the Greek Cypriot policy of not allowing the upgrading of the status of Turkish Cypriots is marginalising the community and rendering it dependent on Turkey.</p><p>“Christodoulides, if he wants, can transform the Greek Cypriot policy,” Borman said. “With the steps he takes as leader, he can bring the Turkish Cypriots closer to Greek Cypriots and the EU, help them become a more democratic community that is more in line with EU principles. He can do away with some of the anomalies arising from the Cyprus problem, he can reduce the dependence on Turkey, and revive reunification hopes.”</p><p>“Will Christodoulides be the leader of all Cypriots and not of only Greek Cypriots? Will he prove his sincerity to Turkish Cypriots and the international community? Time will tell,” said peace activist Kemal Baykallı.</p><p>But fellow peace activist and political analyst Greek Cypriot Andromachi Sophocleous was apprehensive. “Nikos Christodoulides, in his election programme, didn’t shy away from explicitly addressing Turkish Cypriots. This is in stark contrast with his actions since the election. Since he assumed power, we have seen no mention of unilateral moves towards Turkish Cypriots. We haven’t seen anything concrete that indicates he has an understanding of the current situation of Turkish Cypriots.”</p><p>Such a ground-breaking approach would receive pushbacks, Sophocleous said, drawing attention to the parties that reject a bizonal, bicommunal federation in Cyprus that supported Christodoulides.</p><p>“But a leader needs to understand that it is his duty,” she insisted. “It is time for the Republic of Cyprus to reposition itself in a way that it truly represents its people, including the Turkish Cypriots… It is time to stop punishing Turkish Cypriots for what it accuses Turkey of doing.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/03/26/leader-of-all-cypriots/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/03/26/leader-of-all-cypriots/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-14451280408793325002023-12-05T15:22:00.003+03:002023-12-05T15:22:27.129+03:00Corruption is rife in northern Cyprus<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>March 12, 2023</b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p><b><i>North is 140th on the corruption index along with Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Cameroon</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUHDc8k19k4gp3nlWS4fJKlZvIoKg57f-Y365qEv-RnfausPYoZiGdKORtMoEDNOe-LOF1ZJh10C8tzqsu-bYZd_H9vCUx3xtOcbx9U2GCKvDZ5Mgms2kxcVTZ9o8NiH3jbd3r8Vj6gsXz2NAWhLsOdtD5DhxvsP3rzh8Efgy5u6iZHYAZA6aWKH0_lJI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="880" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUHDc8k19k4gp3nlWS4fJKlZvIoKg57f-Y365qEv-RnfausPYoZiGdKORtMoEDNOe-LOF1ZJh10C8tzqsu-bYZd_H9vCUx3xtOcbx9U2GCKvDZ5Mgms2kxcVTZ9o8NiH3jbd3r8Vj6gsXz2NAWhLsOdtD5DhxvsP3rzh8Efgy5u6iZHYAZA6aWKH0_lJI" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Turkish Cypriot coalition head Ünal Üstel (yeniduzen)</b><p></p><p>A comprehensive study on corruption conducted in the northern part of Cyprus has revealed that it is extremely widespread, with 40 per cent of the business executives interviewed having resorted to bribery in the past year.</p><p>Seventy-two per cent of the 350 interviewed said bribery and corruption was ‘very common’.</p><p>Bribery was found to be most rampant among the ‘prime minister’ and ‘ministers’.</p><p>According to the study, which was based on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) methodology, the corruption perception score of the north for 2022, is 27 out of 100. On a scale of 0-100, zero indicates very high corruption and 100 indicates no corruption.</p><p>Transparency International, which publishes the corruption perception scores annually for 180 countries, does not cover the unrecognised northern part of Cyprus. Hence the need for this study by academics Sertaç Sonan an Ömer Gökçekuş, with the sponsorship of German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) foundation, to measure the perception of corruption and to determine where it stands compared to the rest of the world.</p><p>The score of 27 is far below the average score of 43 in 180 countries and places the north in the 140th position on the index along with Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Cameroon. The corruption perception score of Turkey is 36, placing it in 101st position, while the corruption perception score of the Republic of Cyprus is 52, placing it at 51.</p><p>“This score is definitely worrying,” says Sonan, one of the academics, who conducted the study. The countries below us are the failed states most of which are going through civil wars.”</p><p>The study done for the sixth consecutive year demonstrates that corruption is on the rise. When the first study was conducted in 2017, the score for the north was 41.</p><p>As part of the study, a survey was given to 350 business executives, who are in senior managerial positions of companies. A separate survey was given to a group of retired high-level civil servants, who well know how the public sector mechanism works.</p><p><b><i>99 per cent say there is bribery and corruption</i></b></p><p>According to the findings, a staggering 99 per cent of the business executives, who participated in the study, say that there is bribery and corruption with 72 per cent believing they are ‘very common,’ while 54 per cent believe that corruption has worsened compared to the previous year. Ninety-four per cent of them said corruption is an obstacle to doing business.</p><p>Forty per cent of the business executives admitted to giving bribes, gifts or doing a favour to a civil servant in the last year to expedite or finalise work, or to get favourable treatment.</p><p>Sonan believes the real number is well above 40 per cent as it is difficult for anyone to say ‘I gave bribes.’</p><p>According to the business executives, bribery or ‘undocumented extra payment’ is most common in public tenders, issuing permissions and licences, giving incentives and allocating and leasing public land and buildings. It is least common in obtaining favourable judicial decisions.</p><p>Those surveyed mostly held politicians responsible for corruption. According to 84 per cent, corruption is ‘very common’ among ‘prime minister’ and ‘ministers.’ These are followed by members of the Turkish Cypriot assembly (76 per cent) and high-level civil servants (69 per cent). While 33 per cent said corruption is ‘very common’ among lower-level civil servants, 22 per cent said corruption among prosecutors and 20 per cent said corruption among judges are ‘very common.’</p><p>The study shows that the participants’ trust in institutional mechanisms that are expected to prevent corruption is quite low. Eighty per cent said the ‘government’ is ‘not successful at all’ in fighting corruption. Seventy-two per cent said officials involved in corruption are not prosecuted. According to participants, the most effective institution in the fight against corruption are courts, but only by 16 per cent. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhckZQkOl1Qauws-w-Kxr26uVA8J-LkkCsk9GaKA12asMcb1o8kgmalG7oGZcv3UkMQZCX0RL4MqiDNZ3arIFST9weRdMmJravqHUVAc8omp7q_2TWw1TxsCVDaCa10fuGKGjjNOSju6F_cfX2QxzIZ_Ickw8uthOUkGTyaPwSV4Vv0_Qyj3FehZayv9NE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="1161" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhckZQkOl1Qauws-w-Kxr26uVA8J-LkkCsk9GaKA12asMcb1o8kgmalG7oGZcv3UkMQZCX0RL4MqiDNZ3arIFST9weRdMmJravqHUVAc8omp7q_2TWw1TxsCVDaCa10fuGKGjjNOSju6F_cfX2QxzIZ_Ickw8uthOUkGTyaPwSV4Vv0_Qyj3FehZayv9NE" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b><i>Political corruption</i></b><p></p><p>The survey also gave indications about political corruption. Seventy-five per cent of those surveyed said that it is common to buy votes or offer special favours during election periods. Thirty-four per cent said voters are frequently threatened with punishment unless they vote in a certain way.</p><p>Asked about the reasons why corruption is so widespread, Sonan mentions some shortcomings in the institutional infrastructure such as the lack of legislation, lack of qualified personnel, and most importantly, the highly politicised nature of appointments to higher levels of bureaucracy.</p><p>However, Sonan explains the grave increase in corruption especially after 2020 with a number of large scandals at the top of the Turkish Cypriot administration that have gone unpunished and even, in some cases, rewarded.</p><p>Some of these are the intervention against Mustafa Akıncı in the elections for the Turkish Cypriot leader in 2020; the AdaPass scandal – in which unvaccinated persons were issued fake safe passes for Covid 19 by the ‘health ministry’ in 2021 – the orchestrated collapse of successive governments in 2022, the murder of mafia boss Falyali in 2022 and his funeral attended by senior government officials, and the ongoing fuel procurements without tenders at the electricity authority.</p><p>“Accountability starts at the top,” says Sonan. “There is impunity here. All these scandals are taking place at the top and nothing is happening.”</p><p>The most striking of these scandals was probably the infamous ‘jet scandal’ in 2020. Ünal Üstel, who was the then ‘minister’ for tourism, gave special permission for a group of nine Turkish businessmen and three Russian escorts to fly into Ercan in a private jet and bypass the strict Covid 19 testing and quarantine rules. Soon after being dismissed from his position by the then ‘prime minister’ Ersin Tatar, Üstel returned to the top of the administration as ‘prime minister’ in May 2022. It has been widely speculated that Ankara is behind this appointment.</p><p>Sonan explains that this, coupled with the deep economic crisis that the Turkish Cypriot community has been going through in the past couple of years, makes people more inclined to resort to corruption. This explains worsening levels especially among lower-level civil servants.</p><p>“Hollowing out institutions though political appointments, rendering democracy and elections so meaningless through all these political interventions, moving away from meritocracy affects the society from the very top to the very bottom,” says Sonan. “Some say you have to hit rock bottom before rising again. I don’t believe in this analogy. For us, there is no rock bottom. We are in free fall and are constantly hitting more and more bottoms.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/03/12/corruption-is-rife-in-northern-cyprus/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/03/12/corruption-is-rife-in-northern-cyprus/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-75593309170362572852023-12-05T15:14:00.007+03:002023-12-05T15:14:55.488+03:00‘Famagusta has had wars, but never such a pain’<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>February 19, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>Turkish Cypriots left reeling after Turkey earthquake deaths</i></b></p><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgq2qjjI9AYLl9zE-SUjktqvRhcO7FzelBu27uItA5v1BxJ01pou3RW01chPvcq8RreXPTSLfdC5re6RED3-j2MEe3fa0bzKE7Nt4MjViA1Jmpi1Mv0X-MMu7CnPp27dpXFn7wBC7bFoDggwsk8NOeLRPfjV19jh1CwFawy-_uEM3nYpVPchJ6DRfw_f4A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1600" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgq2qjjI9AYLl9zE-SUjktqvRhcO7FzelBu27uItA5v1BxJ01pou3RW01chPvcq8RreXPTSLfdC5re6RED3-j2MEe3fa0bzKE7Nt4MjViA1Jmpi1Mv0X-MMu7CnPp27dpXFn7wBC7bFoDggwsk8NOeLRPfjV19jh1CwFawy-_uEM3nYpVPchJ6DRfw_f4A" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Rescuers in the rubble of the Isias hotel</b></div><p>The Turkish Cypriot community, and especially Famagustians, are mourning the deaths of 24 of their brightest and most accomplished children along with 11 parents and teachers in the devastating earthquake that hit southern Turkey last week.</p><p>The students, aged between 11 and 14, were all from a Famagusta secondary school and were in the Turkish city of Adıyaman for a volleyball championship along with 15 parents and teachers. They were all staying at the Isias hotel. Thirty-five of them including all the children died, while four adults managed to get out of the rubble by themselves.</p><p>As the bodies of 24 children and 15 adults were recovered from the Isias hotel rubble and brought back to Cyprus over the course of a week, Turkish Cypriots were likening their pain to none other they had felt before.</p><p>“Famagusta has had wars, but never such a pain,” said peace activist and doctor Okan Dağlı, who lost his cousin’s wife and two children in the Adıyaman Isias hotel. “These children did not go to war. These children went to play volleyball and they got buried alive under the rubble.”</p><p>In the worst natural disaster in the region of the last century, as the World Health Organisation has called it, two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 struck southern Turkey and north-western Syria within hours on Monday, February 6 and killed a total of over 41,000 people – a figure that is expected to rise. The total number of Turkish Cypriots to have died in the earthquake in different parts of Turkey now stands at 48.</p><p>Dağlı explains that the grief has touched everyone in Famagusta in some way, as every child that has died, or their parents are friends with or known to someone in the closely knit and small town.</p><p>“Some people in Famagusta lost all their family in the earthquake, some children lost both their parents, some parents lost both their children,” says Dağlı. “The whole town is crying. We don’t only have pain at the funerals, cemetery, or memorial services. We have pain everywhere.”</p><p>Thousands attended the funerals of the schoolchildren and their parents and teachers held in Famagusta and the surrounding villages over the course of a week as bodies were brought back from Turkey. The streets of Famagusta were largely empty while many restaurants and shops remained closed until later this week. Social media in the northern part of Cyprus has been filled with black profile pictures or a cartoon by Iranian cartoonist Ali Reza Pakdel, which pictures a boy and a girl playing volleyball with a moon and stars.</p><p>“An undefinable pain was raining on the 700-year-old cathedral,” wrote journalist Cenk Mutluyakalı, after the funeral for the last bodies was held at Famagusta’s the Lala Mustafa Paşa Camii or the Ayios Nicholas cathedral last Sunday.</p><p>“Thousands of faces, who have grown old in a matter of seven days, were looking at each other meaninglessly; sounds of prayer were interrupted with sobs; the feeling of helplessness in the face of death was rolling down from the eyes. Everyone in Famagusta lost someone close to them. The city lost its colours, thousands of people lost their children, and a school lost its voice.”</p><p><b>Anger</b></p><p>Alongside grief, there is also a huge anger among the Turkish Cypriot community towards not only the owner of the Isias hotel and the contractor who built it, but also towards the Turkish officials, who gave permits and licences to the building, which collapsed like a sandcastle.</p><p>“The building was a death trap,” Cemal Betmezoğlu, who participated in the search and rescue effort at the Isias hotel told the daily Yenidüzen. “There was no concrete. The rubble was just a pile of sand with no concrete… Unfortunately, it was obvious at first sight that we would not find many people alive.”</p><p>Murat Aktuğralı, who managed to get out of the rubble by himself, but lost his 13-year-old son Aras, says that the hotel collapsed in the first 15-20 minutes. Turkish tourist guide Anıl Zeybek, who was pulled out of the rubble of the Isias hotel alive after 30 hours, confirms Aktuğralı’s account.</p><p>Turkish Cypriots have taken the social media to demand that a criminal investigation be opened into the owners of Isias, and all the others responsible for the hotel that killed so many children. #isiaskatilleriyargilansin (#prosecuteisiasmurderers) became the number one trend topic on Twitter in Turkey.</p><p>“We are all very angry,” says Dağlı. “These children were killed. This is not the worst natural disaster of the century. This is the worse negligence of the century.”</p><p>Journalist Sami Özuslu, who has friends that lost their children in the earthquake, likens the Isias hotel rubble to the mass graves from 1974.</p><p>“After Muratağa, Atlılar, Sandallar, we have a new mass grave in Adıyaman,” says Özuslu.</p><p>The board of directors of the Union of the Chambers of Cyprus Turkish Engineers and Architects KTMMOB stated that it is working closely with the Turkish chamber and will publicise the results of the study conducted on the samples taken from the rubble of the Isias hotel. The Turkish Cypriot Bar Association also said it is cooperating with the Turkish Bar Association to bring those responsible to account for the lives that have been lost.</p><p>Four people, Ahmet Bozkurt, Efe Bozkurt, Amine Bozkurt and Şule Özbek have been apprehended in relation with the Isias Hotel collapse, the Adıyaman Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office stated on Wednesday.</p><p>However, there are doubts in the community that justice will be served, as the hotel’s owner, Ahmet Bozkurt, and his family are supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party AKP. Bozkurt openly supports AKP during elections and had a large poster of Erdoğan unfurled from the Isias hotel during the 2018 elections.</p><p>According to the Turkish OdaTV, the hotel construction had previously been closed and sealed twice for not conforming with the earthquake safety standards, but the seals were broken and the construction continued because of the owners’ close relations with AKP.</p><p><b>Solidarity</b></p><p>Amid grief, heartbreak and anger, the Turkish Cypriot community was overwhelmed by the unprecedented solidarity and support it received from the Greek Cypriots.</p><p>From the first moment that it was confirmed that there were Turkish Cypriot children under the rubble in Adıyaman, hundreds of Greek Cypriots took to social media to write messages of empathy. Some Greek Cypriot schools and volleyball teams prepared banners and posted messages of solidarity. Politicians, political parties and civil society organisations released statements in support of the Turkish Cypriot community.</p><p>As bodies started to be recovered, many Greek Cypriots changed their profile pictures to black. Many attended the funerals in Famagusta. Some Greek Cypriots placed flowers on the gate of the school where the children, who died, attended. On Sunday, Greek Cypriot civil society activists held a symbolic vigil outside the Presidential Palace in Nicosia.</p><p>Nicosia municipality and others placed their flags at half-mast.</p><p>In response, the Nicosia Turkish municipality posted on its social media page: “We will forever remember how you shared our pain and showed your support in these difficult times.”</p><p>The House of Representatives and the Cyprus university also lowered their flags to half-mast.</p><p>“The loss of these young people’s lives fills us with immense sadness. Some of them, in a short time, could have been members of our university community. The flags of the University of Cyprus fly at half mast,” rector Tasos Christofidis posted on his social media page.</p><p>“So many Greek Cypriot friends called, sent messages, came to the funerals, brought flowers,” says Dağlı, who is very much touched by how this tragedy has brought the two communities closer together. “There is an unbelievable feeling of empathy. They are feeling our pain.”</p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/02/19/famagusta-has-had-wars-but-never-such-a-pain/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/02/19/famagusta-has-had-wars-but-never-such-a-pain/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-75122467611436191572023-12-05T15:09:00.001+03:002023-12-05T15:09:12.142+03:00‘Step by step’ moves to annexation of north<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>February 6, 2023</b></p><p><b><i>The current extent of integration with Turkey is unprecedented</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9Q7zLZx0Ew21yNzk2nmlF0ajDq1q2GUcAr8inLMnEnOkvOOPAI_ct8n1BMlDpYQlvbtDGHROPAHLcz1gOfxu7tO0TUMDMIfIZZLR_4tvu77rQ2_A_J2URQfIApfgcpsjWngO-yZAtMQr82-cJ3HqnSUx4_rAD4Jr_hJCBlmoGlPQENnuVj42OchUPI7E" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1076" data-original-width="1741" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9Q7zLZx0Ew21yNzk2nmlF0ajDq1q2GUcAr8inLMnEnOkvOOPAI_ct8n1BMlDpYQlvbtDGHROPAHLcz1gOfxu7tO0TUMDMIfIZZLR_4tvu77rQ2_A_J2URQfIApfgcpsjWngO-yZAtMQr82-cJ3HqnSUx4_rAD4Jr_hJCBlmoGlPQENnuVj42OchUPI7E" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>(At the time) Prime Minister of Turkey Binali Yıldırım with former Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı in 2017</b><p></p><p>It has been almost six years since the then-prime minister of Turkey, Binali Yıldırım, who was visiting former Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı to discuss the crisis in the ongoing federal solution negotiations, proclaimed: “Whatever there is in Turkey, it will be in Cyprus.”</p><p>In these six years, the United Nations-sponsored negotiations failed, Turkey declared the UN parameters for a solution invalid and started promoting a two-state solution in Cyprus. Meanwhile, with the collaboration of the obeying Turkish Cypriot politicians, Turkey’s control over the northern part of Cyprus grew bigger than ever. Among other things, the Turkish Cypriot community saw unprecedented interventions in their elections; a stark rise of political Islam, reactionism and conservatism in the north; suffocating control of the Turkish embassy over every single internal dossier from education to health; increased daily financial, administrative and political dependence on Ankara; smashing pressure on media and civil society; plans to establish more military bases and open the fenced-off city of Varosha; and an accelerated demographic change.</p><p>Turkish Cypriots learned the hard way that Yıldırım was not joking, and almost everyone in the community admits that right now, there is an unprecedented integration of the northern part of Cyprus with Turkey. However, recent developments – from an Ankara-appointed mufti, who is pushing the buttons of the secular Turkish Cypriot community to a bid to change the legislation and enable Ankara to go ahead with any building project in the north without local approval – are making more and more people question what Ankara’s ultimate aim in Cyprus is, and whether the annexation of the northern part of Cyprus may be on the cards.</p><p>Most recently, the north Cyprus representation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party AKP organised a meeting with the Turkish Cypriot mukhtars, who are elected local authorities, in Kyrenia, during which, head of the representation Fahri Yönlüer told them to convey their problems to Ankara instead of the Turkish Cypriot administration.</p><p>“I know the capacity of the TRNC,” Yönlüer was reported as saying. “You cannot rely on help from the central administration. The right address for meeting your needs is the Republic of Turkey.”</p><p>“Nothing that is happening is a coincidence,” wrote the daily Özgür Gazete earlier this week, saying that all these developments are step by step taking the Turkish Cypriot community to an annexation.</p><p>“The footsteps of Turkish Enosis,” was the title of journalist Hasan Kahvecioğlu’s column in the daily Halkın Sesi. He argued that the upcoming difficult presidential elections in Turkey is likely to make a panicking Erdoğan “from whom anything can be expected” to annex the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>“The essence of the deep ‘two-state’ project is becoming more and more clear,” wrote Kahvecioğlu. “And the excuse is ready: ‘Federation was not possible; we said two states, this was not possible either; so, what should we do? Wait for the Greek Cypriots for another 50 years?’ And then they will say that the only option that remains is ‘annexation.’ This will make Erdoğan – the ‘Conqueror of Cyprus’ – come out of the 14 May elections victorious.”</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhszzCElUvMZx6-xAeHH1xJ6GSlGvibBi8c1bTQJnWw8_0AQhekbEC47UKJn11HC8ZeVcaDkJscFs5SzrE1eI1LZLDQMvluZ9cDi_IOrLmPi69tJ5WBzf9X5K7hYkd1pIcL8y1DdmBJNtJ6i0ykc4AflU-J_hKtbiBdt8RgOS4m6bZz3-2w-rL-PbCsSok" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1411" data-original-width="1888" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhszzCElUvMZx6-xAeHH1xJ6GSlGvibBi8c1bTQJnWw8_0AQhekbEC47UKJn11HC8ZeVcaDkJscFs5SzrE1eI1LZLDQMvluZ9cDi_IOrLmPi69tJ5WBzf9X5K7hYkd1pIcL8y1DdmBJNtJ6i0ykc4AflU-J_hKtbiBdt8RgOS4m6bZz3-2w-rL-PbCsSok" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Akp representatives meeting with mukhtars in the north (ozgur gazete)</b><p></p><p>Kahvecioğlu also claimed that gatherings are already being held at Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s office with civil society organisations, which bring together people of Turkish origin living in Cyprus, to prepare for a possible annexation referendum.</p><p>This week, many Turkish Cypriot social media users posted on their pages a black background with the word “Enosis” written on it, implying that the northern part of Cyprus is being united with Turkey.</p><p>Adding fuel to the flames, right-wing Turkish Cypriot leader Tatar, who is a strong opponent of a federal solution in Cyprus and a staunch supporter of Turkey’s increased role, in an interview to The Guardian newspaper last week, said unless there is a two-state solution on the island, the northern part of Cyprus would integrate even more with Turkey.</p><p>“Obviously, if there is no agreement, in the long run we will have more and more Turkish influence on the island because we will over time become more and more dependent on Turkey,” he asserted.</p><p>According to Mine Atlı, who is the head of the Social Democracy Party TDP of former Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı and the current mayor of the Nicosia Turkish municipality Mehmet Harmancı, the foundations of an annexation were laid through the latest financial aid protocol between the northern part of Cyprus and Ankara.</p><p>The ‘Economic and Financial Cooperation Protocol’ promised loans for the Turkish Cypriot community in exchange for conditions that call for limited fundamental rights and freedoms including the freedom of expression; an undermined civil society; a strengthened role of Islam; easier Turkish Cypriot citizenship for Turkish nationals; no restrictions on Turkish nationals to acquire property and to invest; and the preparation of Varosha for daily use.</p><p>Atlı argues that Turkey finds little resistance from the international community, the Republic of Cyprus, and the Turkish Cypriot opposition in reaching its objective in the north and that the current environment enables Turkey to implement every policy it has on Cyprus.</p><p>“Turkey is carrying out its project with utmost diligence and ease,” says Atlı.</p><p>While conceding that an annexation of the northern part of Cyprus is possible, PRIO Cyprus Centre’s Senior Researcher Mete Hatay underlines that this will have consequences for Turkey and warns that talking so much about this possibility may prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p><p>“Yes, it’s possible, Turkey may annex the north,” Hatay says. “But is Erdoğan ready to pay the price of doing this? We already have a de-facto integration. In the past, Turkey would let us play in our middle earth [the world between heaven and hell according to Islam]. Now that middle earth too has collapsed, and Turkey is directly in control… Therefore, it doesn’t really need to annex the north. But as we voice such an eventuality over and over again, we are, in a way, preparing the grounds for it. Because no matter how well-meaning, such presuppositions serve to break people’s mental resistance.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/02/06/step-by-step-moves-to-annexation-of-north/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/02/06/step-by-step-moves-to-annexation-of-north/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-8537129091191540782023-12-05T15:03:00.002+03:002023-12-05T15:03:30.613+03:00Secular Turkish Cypriot community under threat<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>January 22, 2023</b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p><b><i>From the new mufti to illegal cults, the north is being swamped by Islamisation</i></b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgiiRTqaMMpbg-HUdHOKTgnnwZg7BlSsD2wXTFGO5E1dzmECl-4vPeCqL5z2jsll4QcQu0HuV_UtYhD89X8Kuycc_akBxJljy8AQbBOIjgNEA7aldal8A9ZplySqbeMkNrdKlLNYYsWgQOZuDQvBZoqYOVG0QWnkBYU4qMeuT4YZwYrDmVS7_VWd5ZC3hE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="1600" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgiiRTqaMMpbg-HUdHOKTgnnwZg7BlSsD2wXTFGO5E1dzmECl-4vPeCqL5z2jsll4QcQu0HuV_UtYhD89X8Kuycc_akBxJljy8AQbBOIjgNEA7aldal8A9ZplySqbeMkNrdKlLNYYsWgQOZuDQvBZoqYOVG0QWnkBYU4qMeuT4YZwYrDmVS7_VWd5ZC3hE" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><br />Turkish Cypriots brave the pouring rain to protest Islamification</b><p></p><p>A series of revelations since the beginning of this year have shaken the secular and modern Turkish Cypriot community to the core and heightened concerns about Islamisation and radicalisation of the northern part of Cyprus as part of an Ankara-orchestrated project.</p><p>At the beginning of January, online newspaper Özgür Gazete reported that dozens of associations and cults – with the aim of promoting Islam among the Turkish Cypriot community – are active in the north. The newspaper published photographs of young boys gathered at one of these Islamic associations – the Turkey-based Association of Love and Brotherhood Sevkad – in mosques, flats and offices, being subjected to Islamic teachings by older men. The association, which, on its website professed that there is need for ‘morals’ in the north, but then deleted this phrase after a backlash from the community, also organises events where banners displaying the word ‘jihad’, which means ‘fight against the enemies of Islam’, are held celebrating the conquest of Mecca.</p><p>There are illegal cult houses, secretary general Burak Maviş of the Turkish Cypriot Teachers Union Ktos told Özgür Gazete.</p><p>“We make complaints,” he said. “Police go and raid a place and close it down. The next day, they receive a phone call. The house is reopened, and they continue their activities. These sects and cults are fearless because of the Turkish embassy and Turkey.”</p><p>Ozan Elmali, the head of the Turkish Cypriot Secondary School Teachers Union Ktoeos said that all these are being done in the name of “religion” and with a focus on “morality”, but in fact, the real aim is political.</p><p>“Everyone, who so wishes, is gathering children under 15 anywhere, and giving them courses that are in contradiction with scientific, secular education,” Elmali said. “Those, who attempt at social engineering, should know that we will not give way to bigots. This country will not turn into the country of sheiks, dervishes, disciples and lunatics.”</p><p>Before the Turkish Cypriot community could get over the shock of Islamic cults approaching minors all over the north, another online newspaper, Bugün Kıbrıs published the blood chilling voice recording of Ahmet Ünsal, the head of the religious affairs department and the new mufti of Turkish Cypriots.</p><p>During a seminar in Famagusta on “The rights and obligations of spouses in marriage under Islam”, targeting women and girls only, Ünsal said: “The only reason for getting married is to reproduce, and therefore, women have to obey their husbands’ invitation to bed and meet his needs.” He also said, “girls should be married off as soon as someone suitable comes across.” The seminar was organised by the Religious Services Consultancy of the Turkish embassy in Nicosia.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" class="placeholder" height="240" id="1a03b66365add" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/transparent.gif" style="background-color: #d8d8d8; background-image: url('https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/materialiconsextended/insert_photo/v6/grey600-24dp/1x/baseline_insert_photo_grey600_24dp.png'); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; opacity: 0.6;" width="320" /></div><br /><b>Young boys at one of the islamic associations (Ozgur Gazete)</b><p></p><p>The mufti is appointed through the joint signature of the Turkish Cypriot leader and the head of the Turkish Cypriot administration. Until now, all muftis were selected among either Turkish Cypriots, or among people of Turkish origin, but who had grown up in Cyprus and knew the culture and the lifestyle here. The new mufti Ünsal, on the other hand, being appointed to Cyprus directly from Turkey, is not accustomed to the Turkish Cypriot way of life. He was granted the Turkish Cypriot citizenship in a matter of days before being appointed mufti and this is why he is being referred to as the “imported mufti” in the media.</p><p>A number of Turkish Cypriot imams, who spoke to Bugün Kıbrıs on condition of anonymity, said that they are struggling with the ‘incompatibility’ they have with the new mufti.</p><p>Questioning why, while there are qualified Turkish Cypriots for the job, someone from Turkey has been appointed as mufti, one of the imams said: “When we warn him about a mistake he has made, he says: ‘the [Turkish] National Intelligence Organisation MİT asked me to do this.’”</p><p>“He complains to important people in Turkey about those of us who stand up to him,” the imam added.</p><p>There is a widespread demand for Ünal’s dismissal in the community. Some, including former senior judge and former ombudswoman Emine Dizdarli, are calling for him to be prosecuted and punished for violating the secularism principle of the Turkish Cypriot constitution.</p><p>The right-wing ruling coalition has stated that there would be an investigation into the issue. However, no such step has been taken so far.</p><p>The revelations sent Turkish Cypriots from all walks of life – from doctors to teachers, from journalists to lawyers, from engineers and architects to politicians, and even the retired civil servants of the religious affairs department out on the streets earlier this week. Under pouring rain, a total of 46 political parties, non-governmental organisations and unions protested “the attacks against the community’s modern, secular and democratic structure and the [religious] conservatisation policies that are being imposed.”</p><p>“We are here against those, who are trying to design and change our way of life,” said the press statement read by Duygu Geylan, the secretary of Ktoeos.</p><p>“Bigoted mufti, get out of Cyprus,” and “We don’t want cults in Cyprus,” shouted the crowd.</p><p>A group of demonstrators placed a black wreath outside the Turkish embassy.</p><p>Turkish Cypriots are among the most liberal Muslims globally, and traditionally practise a very peaceful, moderate version of Islam. In recent years, however, there has been a significant increase in the religious activities and organisations in the north – all originating from Turkey – leading to concerns about the radicalisation and Islamisation of the Turkish Cypriot community.</p><p>The Turkish governments before the Justice and Development Party AKP, were implementing educational, cultural, social projects to increase the consciousness of “Turkishness” among Turkish Cypriots. With the AKP coming to power, this aim became to increase the consciousness of “Islam”. Turkish Cypriots have particularly been feeling threatened recently by more and larger mosques, illegal Quran courses, plans to establish more theological schools, more conservative imams and religion teachers coming from Turkey, and attempts to change the Turkish Cypriot education system.</p><p>“These activities are aimed at…eroding our culture and values, at preventing liberation and democratisation and at realising the goal of AKP, which is political Islamisation,” said Növber Gürtay, the secretary of the Turkish Cypriot Press Workers Union, Basın-Sen. “In this way, the foundations of this country will be replaced by the AKP culture, and they will guarantee their political future here.”</p><p>Commentators agree that the increase in Islamic activities in the north in recent years is part of a social engineering project by Ankara to maintain control on the Turkish Cypriot community.</p><p>“The Turkish Cypriot community is a community that has embraced a secular way of life,” says academician Yonca Özdemir. “It’s clear that this secular social structure is increasingly disturbing those, who have different plans for the northern part of Cyprus. The goal is to establish a hegemony in the northern part of Cyprus. And if this community’s social and cultural structure is an obstacle to that, of course, changing this structure becomes an important political target. Therefore, yes, all these are part of a comprehensive plan to render the Turkish Cypriot community more controllable.”</p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/01/22/secular-turkish-cypriot-community-under-threat/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/01/22/secular-turkish-cypriot-community-under-threat/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-45230326205153958112023-12-05T14:56:00.004+03:002023-12-05T14:56:45.601+03:00Local elections in north jolt leadership<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>January 8, 2023</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><i>‘The ruling coalition has offended Turkish Cypriot voters’</i></b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjQOQYj2YYSH9UgHP5cNb7sL5FOzv0t-UkkK_IyINWBNSRjyVysaqmrEt6vqWLi0eB8-_hp1CluDTbZN3HgxUE-tpoSskgyD6WqCYjOfxTWC_e23Lv7O2S202W5GefoGsIRrSCN8EhQeqKNjg-T1cyQCd96BIu5dvBJ267nd_BILir0vKmTLr7hqyru7M" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="971" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjQOQYj2YYSH9UgHP5cNb7sL5FOzv0t-UkkK_IyINWBNSRjyVysaqmrEt6vqWLi0eB8-_hp1CluDTbZN3HgxUE-tpoSskgyD6WqCYjOfxTWC_e23Lv7O2S202W5GefoGsIRrSCN8EhQeqKNjg-T1cyQCd96BIu5dvBJ267nd_BILir0vKmTLr7hqyru7M" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><br />Mehmet Harmanci</b><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Local elections in the northern part of Cyprus, branded as a competition between the “pro-Turkey and the pro-Europe,” and “pro-sovereignty and the pro-federal solution” by the Turkish Cypriot leader himself, have resulted in an unexpected failure for the ruling right-wing coalition.</p><p>Support for coalition parties National Unity Party UBP, Democratic Party DP, and Rebirth Party YDP fell compared to the January 2022 general elections, while opposition Republican Turkish Party CTP, and Social Democracy Party TDP, which did not gain any seats in the 2022 elections, saw their votes increase. CTP was the party that won most municipalities, with its candidates succeeding in seven of the 18 municipalities.</p><p>Most importantly, the UBP-DP-YDP coalition lost the two big cities – Kyrenia and Famagusta to left-wing CTP and failed to conquer Nicosia from mayor Mehmet Harmanci of TDP.</p><p>“Voters have jolted the ones in power,” was the headline of daily Bugun Kıbris on the day after the local elections on 25 December.</p><p>“The people have given a warning to the government,” admitted coalition partner YDP’s Erhan Arikli.</p><p>Despite allegations of an intervention by Ankara that were never denied, it was especially significant that the ruling coalition lost Famagusta, where the fight for mayor was seen not as simply a local election but about Turkish control and the continuation of the opening of the fenced-off city of Varosha. CTP’s candidate Suleyman Ulucay won the elections in Famagusta with almost 50 per cent of the votes.</p><p>The ruling coalition also lost Kyrenia to CTP, with Murat Senkul winning the election with 34.3 per cent of the votes.</p><p>Despite the left’s victory in big cities, the ruling coalition and especially UBP was unrivalled in rural areas, bringing its overall vote slightly higher than the overall vote of CTP. The Karpas peninsula for example, where many of the Turkish-origin people live, has, with all its municipalities, gone under the control of UBP with these elections.</p><p>“It seems like UBP is standing with the citizenship policy and especially the votes of the Turkish-origin voters,” says journalist Cenk Mutluyakali. “It has offended the Cypriot voters… and died off in central areas.”</p><p>UBP’s overall votes decreased from 39.6 per cent in January 2022 to 35.8 percent, while CTP’s votes increased from 31.9 per cent to 35.4 per cent, pointing to a heavily polarised political terrain for the future.</p><p>Academician and international relations expert Ipek Borman argues that the current “existential crisis” of Turkish Cypriots played a major role in the setback of the pro-Ankara ruling coalition in big cities.</p><p>“As Turkish Cypriots, we find ourselves trying to hold on to life politically and socio-economically, under such conditions, where democracy has been destroyed,” says Borman. “The local elections took place under these circumstances. Therefore, many of us did not, or were not able to look at these elections solely from a municipal or local perspective. Whether we admit it or not, we are living in an existential state of mind and assessing everything in our political environment through this state of mind. Therefore, even local elections were viewed beyond a local perspective, through an existential perspective… In this sense, it is very important that in the three big cities, social democratic people with concerns about the future have won.”</p><p>Undoubtedly, the biggest victory was by Nicosia Turkish municipality mayor Harmanci, who won almost 50 per cent of the votes in Nicosia against the candidate of UBP and the strong candidate of CTP. Both of Harmanci’s competitors were deputies in the Turkish Cypriot assembly. Harmanci has become the only mayor after former Turkish Cypriot leader and Nicosia Turkish municipality mayor Mustafa Akinci, who could win the municipal elections for three consecutive terms.</p><p>Commentators agree that Harmanci’s major victory should also be seen not solely resulting from local factors, but as a response by the Turkish Cypriot people to the challenges that they are currently faced with.</p><p>“Nicosia election results are beyond just ‘local’” says Mutluyakali. “It is an uprising against the social, political, cultural oppression that we are faced with. A message of communal existence was given through Harmanci… The crowds, who want to unite with the world through a common future [with Greek Cypriots], put forward a political attitude. They stood up against rule by [Turkey’s] orders… In Nicosia, the voters called out AKP (Justice and Development Party) and Ankara’s meddling, oppression, interference in Nicosia.”</p><p>Many ordinary Turkish Cypriots, as well as opinion leaders and journalists took the social media after the Nicosia results were announced to declare Harmanci the new leader of the Turkish Cypriot community.</p><p>“A new leader is born,” tweeted online newspaper Ozgur Gazete.</p><p>“Harmanci is now a candidate to be the communal leader,” tweeted former senior judge Tacan Reynar. “The confidence he has secured in the capital city for all these years, calls him to step forward and lead the people.”</p><p>“Turkish Cypriots have been looking for a communal leader for some time now,” wrote journalist Hasan Yikici. “The support for Harmanci…must be seen as a serious demonstration of this quest. Mehmet Harmanci should, from now on, be seen as a candidate communal leader.”</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/01/08/local-elections-in-north-jolt-leadership/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/01/08/local-elections-in-north-jolt-leadership/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-22377977218835028902023-12-05T14:44:00.003+03:002023-12-05T14:44:21.578+03:00Intervention in north’s Famagusta elections<p><b>By Esra Aygin</b></p><p><b>December 11, 2022</b></p><p><b><i>The fight for mayor is not simply a local election, it is about Varosha and Turkish control</i></b></p><p><b><i></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiM_0afKvYp_STt1e0yXGqgDkumw2Rz6wq-nG8KfjRh65zc4PyHCm71QPI_rGzT33okuT7h_aEe-iOpRmmd06DqmwpMK-gmzDkKQYZ_nYtjJHP1LKTVZjqqJpiEU7kIBjCmSZLtT-Pkczqx9Pe85W25is7QFucjOU_PED2qvHMF1OBH1sKPCDl4-qkSFps" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1325" data-original-width="2048" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiM_0afKvYp_STt1e0yXGqgDkumw2Rz6wq-nG8KfjRh65zc4PyHCm71QPI_rGzT33okuT7h_aEe-iOpRmmd06DqmwpMK-gmzDkKQYZ_nYtjJHP1LKTVZjqqJpiEU7kIBjCmSZLtT-Pkczqx9Pe85W25is7QFucjOU_PED2qvHMF1OBH1sKPCDl4-qkSFps" width="320" /></a></i></b></div><b><i><br />A section of the opened-up Varosha</i></b><p></p><p>Two Famagusta mayor candidates simultaneously withdrew from the upcoming municipal elections 24 hours after announcing their candidacy, prompting widespread conviction that Ankara is once again meddling in the elections in the northern part of Cyprus.</p><p>Both current mayor Ismail Arter and independent candidate Cem Dana were right-wing candidates, and their withdrawal favours the candidate of the ruling coalition National Unity Party UBP. The two independent candidates would have divided the right-wing votes and given a boost to opposition Republican Turkish Party CTP’s candidate.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjsqJD9xWztkFjtWxCDaQW7k4pXqBEF67Wpflu1GGjKBakOfrajbUg7EN9GkrDHClz8ryXTAihYhXWI2Q8pQy1D5m-ieoebn2UOVe-u_TEnz8vn_0DM02vZwIDWAuzwBRzcQiVoYzLcU4aTigy0QWaMYRQoAUcG2cj6TXSnA3yxRpTLsJRr-xCGYdEGsXo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="584" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjsqJD9xWztkFjtWxCDaQW7k4pXqBEF67Wpflu1GGjKBakOfrajbUg7EN9GkrDHClz8ryXTAihYhXWI2Q8pQy1D5m-ieoebn2UOVe-u_TEnz8vn_0DM02vZwIDWAuzwBRzcQiVoYzLcU4aTigy0QWaMYRQoAUcG2cj6TXSnA3yxRpTLsJRr-xCGYdEGsXo" width="248" /></a></div><b>Ismail Arter</b><br /><br /><p></p><p>“It is definite that there has been an intervention,” said opposition CTP’s deputy Erkut Şahali. “And it was a very effective intervention.”</p><p>The ruling UBP, Democratic Party DP, Rebirth Party YDP coalition has not been shy about stating that Famagusta is more important than the other cities because of the plans to open fenced-off Varosha.</p><p>In fact, speaking at a gathering in Famagusta earlier this week, head of UBP and the ruling coalition Ünal Üstel said they would “bring about the full Varosha opening together with Turkey”.</p><p>The ghost town of Varosha is among the places to be returned to its lawful former Greek Cypriot inhabitants under the control of the future Greek Cypriot constituent state within the framework of a comprehensive federal solution on the island. The Turkish government, in 2020 opened a part of Varosha to visits despite UN resolutions prohibiting the move. Turkish and Turkish Cypriot authorities have since been vocal about plans to take forward the “Varosha opening”.</p><p>“The Varosha opening is at the axis of the…policy we have developed with Turkey,” said YDP’s Erhan Arıklı shortly after the withdrawals by the Famagusta candidates. “What would happen to our Varosha opening if someone, who is against this national policy…took over?… How could Ismail Arter or Cem Dana shoulder the responsibility of losing the Famagusta municipality and hampering the Varosha opening?”</p><p>“Evil Alliance” was the headline of Bugün Kıbrıs. “The regime in Ankara made the right wing join in support of a single candidate with the aim of being able to pursue new tensions in Varosha.”</p><p>“They will sacrifice Varosha” was the headline of Ozgur Gazete.</p><p>Former senior judge Tacan Reynar took to social media criticising the intervention. “The biggest concern that led to the intervention in Famagusta is CTP winning this city,” he posted. “Because in that city, there is the prospect of looting… Some are salivating and waiting for Varosha. All this is because of that planned looting.”</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIDq2WKJy81osqCTHdi-QQynjpzI84WRfgFkqZB74QVU3A-VHLdusTHNV1Iz2GUW9E9_5MRzQMt9txmefsDpmxAJR-isJ7Y63s799zNfR5OfVNkXeL0sXXfaOkOBppliURXPOwI0SuSATODCDQNYmCyrZ9g-nuuSmw4bjXVqAO-Z_v6etSSo4hgHqdlBA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIDq2WKJy81osqCTHdi-QQynjpzI84WRfgFkqZB74QVU3A-VHLdusTHNV1Iz2GUW9E9_5MRzQMt9txmefsDpmxAJR-isJ7Y63s799zNfR5OfVNkXeL0sXXfaOkOBppliURXPOwI0SuSATODCDQNYmCyrZ9g-nuuSmw4bjXVqAO-Z_v6etSSo4hgHqdlBA" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Cem Dana</b><p></p><p>The statements by the two withdrawing candidates, whom according to journalist Serhat İncirli were threatened, strengthened suspicions.</p><p>Current Famagusta mayor Arter, when announcing his decision, talked about “intense political activity in the last 24 hours”, and said he was withdrawing “in order not to create problems and grievances for the political parties that my voters belong to”.</p><p>Dana on the other hand, said: “I took this decision in light of our national cause, and our national policy that we are pursuing together with our motherland, the Republic of Turkey.”</p><p>Reports of an intervention by Ankara were never denied, but rather legitimised by the statements of the Turkish Cypriot administration. Visibly happy with the withdrawals, Üstel thanked Arter, who “has always supported our policies on the Cyprus problem, which we pursue together with our motherland Turkey, and who did not shy away from saying ‘nothing is important when national interests are at stake’.”</p><p>“I am pleased to hear that he has withdrawn his candidacy,” Üstel said about Dana, adding that this election is not simply a local election. “Dana has taken into consideration the projects that we have tabled for Famagusta, and our foreign policy we pursue through a common understanding with Turkey. I commend him for not insisting.”</p><p>The municipal elections are scheduled for 25 December 2022.</p><p>The withdrawals took place two days after the new Turkish ambassador Metin Feyzioğlu arrived in the northern part of Cyprus, and many believe this was not a coincidence. Feyzioğlu is one of the architects of the ‘Varosha opening’.</p><p>In fact, Turkish politician and intellectual Veysi Sarısözen wrote that Feyzioğlu has been sent to Cyprus by Turkish President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party AKP with a special mission. “As part of this mission, he will first seize Varosha,” Sarısözen said.</p><p>Back in 2020, when Feyzioğlu was the head of the Turkish Bar Association, he had organised a meeting on the “Legal, Political and Economic Aspects of the Varosha Opening” in the fenced-off city. The then-Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı was not invited to the meeting, where Feyzioğlu had argued that “North Cyprus has sovereignty over Varosha.” “The Varosha opening will serve as the solution of the Cyprus problem,” Feyzioğlu had said.</p><p>Later in the year, days before the election for the Turkish Cypriot leader, in a move widely seen as an attempt to sway results against former Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, Turkish President Erdogan and Akinci’s rival Ersin Tatar announced the opening of part of the sealed-off city of Varosha.</p><p>On the day of the opening, Feyzioğlu tweeted: “Only the Turkish nation can decide on the future of closed off-city of Varosha. And it did. Varosha is now open. I am proud to have been part of this big dream… We still have a lot to do.”</p><p>And last weekend, a few days after the withdrawal of two mayor candidates, Metin Feyzioğlu visited Varosha and tweeted: “Varosha is under the sovereignty of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.”</p><p>UN Security Council resolution 550 (1984) considers any attempts to settle any part of Varosha by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the UN. Resolution 789 (1992) also calls that, with a view to the implementation of resolution 550 (1984), the area at present under the control of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus be extended to include Varosha.</p><p>An investigation on allegations of Turkey’s interference in the 2020 elections for the Turkish Cypriot leader had revealed shocking details of threats, pressures, and blackmailing against incumbent leader Mustafa Akinci, as well as other candidates and journalists. The report, published last year, by a team of civil society representatives, lawyers and researchers details blatant interference by Ankara in the elections in favour of right-wing politician and current Turkish Cypriot leader Tatar.</p><p><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2022/12/11/intervention-in-norths-famagusta-elections/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2022/12/11/intervention-in-norths-famagusta-elections/</a></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614036171563070369.post-10706991665638613352022-12-02T20:59:00.001+03:002022-12-02T20:59:12.013+03:00Noose is tightening around Turkish Cypriots<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWURpfJ9FsFKaj0fHixKemLplQA3nZWnmUanvUmV-whZMNQaAOwfgbEJEiqiEtDSdY4BVwUnFyfiTUxm_F_0evEtvpi7hJWSS3LjR0sATT0OE3aHipbM_0skTfhUP49G_kTRdUNbb6PmQYClnVVxiU7yPyD1jj5oBYJS4jvswnOZpz73kBOps10rf8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWURpfJ9FsFKaj0fHixKemLplQA3nZWnmUanvUmV-whZMNQaAOwfgbEJEiqiEtDSdY4BVwUnFyfiTUxm_F_0evEtvpi7hJWSS3LjR0sATT0OE3aHipbM_0skTfhUP49G_kTRdUNbb6PmQYClnVVxiU7yPyD1jj5oBYJS4jvswnOZpz73kBOps10rf8" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><h4 style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; clear: none; color: #111111; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Fears that worse is yet to come in north in protest over Erdogan’s policies</span></h4><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">By Esra Aygin</p><div class="cypru-video-ads" id="cypru-1050140053" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="cypru-target" data-cypru-trackbid="1" data-cypru-trackid="478051" id="cypru-1138241752" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><div data-google-query-id="CLr1yvLA2_sCFYd_GwodrUMNJw" id="gpt-ad-5347376481123-0" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div id="google_ads_iframe_/16049973/Video-Content-HTML5_0__container__" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0pt none; box-sizing: inherit; height: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 580px;"></div></div></div></div><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Northern Cyprus is slipping out of the hands of the Turks, warned a Turkish ex-rear admiral and called on the authorities to push for severe criminal sanctions on Turkish Cypriot individuals and institutions “acting against the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Turkey and Turkishness.”</p><div class="cypru-f3e8c9e62396a2d55ef9a073abbfdc60 cypru-single-mobile-2" id="cypru-f3e8c9e62396a2d55ef9a073abbfdc60" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div class="cypru-d0fd55adab08c5e476e173035031f118 cypru-single-mobile-1" id="cypru-d0fd55adab08c5e476e173035031f118" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div class="cypru-6b93bd6fdd54718ce6082647d728bf65 cypru-single-business-mobile" id="cypru-6b93bd6fdd54718ce6082647d728bf65" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">These words of the former chief of staff of the Turkish naval forces Cihat Yaycı, and aimed at journalists and trade unionists among others, sent chills down the spine of Turkish Cypriots, as commentators warn that the worst – in terms of the pressure Turkey exerts on the community – is yet to come.</p><div class="cypru-738524feadf5d2a917eefef831a08ea2 cypru-single-mobile-3" id="cypru-738524feadf5d2a917eefef831a08ea2" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“This man is deep state and what he says is important,” says Turkish Cypriot Akel MEP Ni<span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yazi Kızılyürek, whom Yaycı called a </span>“<span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">servant of the </span>Greeks and Greek Cypriots, who claims to be a Turk”.</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yaycı, in his article published in Turkish news portal <a class="vglnk" href="http://tv100.com/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #01579b; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">TV100</span><span style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span><span style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">com</span></a> on November 17, said that in early 2000s, during the Annan Plan period, the then-Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash was side-lined and the Turkish Cypriot institutions, labour unions and journalists were left vulnerable to EU’s interferences. From then on, “there has been a political and sociological design on the island by the West,” continued Yaycı.</p><figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-597515" class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_597515" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: none; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; color: #777777; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 1.3rem; font-style: italic; margin: 7px auto 1.5em; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; overflow: inherit !important; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; width: 1024px;"><img alt="feature esra cihat yaycı" class="wp-image-597515 size-large lazy loaded" data-sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" data-src="https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-1024x682.jpg" data-srcset="https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-480x320.jpg 480w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-280x186.jpg 280w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-960x639.jpg 960w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-601x400.jpg 601w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-585x390.jpg 585w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci.jpg 1368w" data-was-processed="true" decoding="async" height="682" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-1024x682.jpg" srcset="https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-480x320.jpg 480w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-280x186.jpg 280w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-960x639.jpg 960w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-601x400.jpg 601w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci-585x390.jpg 585w, https://cyprus-mail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/feature-esra-Cihat-Yayci.jpg 1368w" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; min-height: 1px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="1024" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-597515" style="background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); border: 0px; bottom: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: white; left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 11px 10px; position: absolute; transition: all 0.4s ease 0s; vertical-align: baseline; width: 810px;">Cihat Yaycı</figcaption></figure><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yaycı claimed that, as part of this, Greece and the Greek Cypriots – under the pretence of EU aid – have been funding opposition newspapers and journalists in the northern part of Cyprus, the trade unions and many other initiatives; and in this way, have been expanding their area of influence in the north.</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As a result of this, Turkish Cypriot “youth are in admiration of the West, the Greek Cypriots and Greece,” according to the rear admiral, who stated that those “loyal to their state, country and nation are going extinct.”</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To overturn this process, the ‘TRNC’ should be strengthened: by changing the Turkish Cypriot education curriculum to instil students with a consciousness of Turkishness; depriving opposition trade unions of financial resources and closing them down; bringing Greek, Greek Cypriot, and European NGOs and foundations under intense surveillance and if necessary not permitting them to operate; and monitoring the financial resources of newspapers and journalists and questioning suspicious flows from abroad, the former rear admiral said.</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">These comments could have easily been brushed aside as sensational, had Yaycı not been the very architect of the recent neo-Ottoman “Blue Homeland” or Mavi Vatan doctrine, which has been adopted by the current Turkish government as an official policy, and which is regularly cited by Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdo<span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ğ</span>an<span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span></p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This expansive and nationalist doctrine encompasses Turkey’s maritime jurisdictions in the Black, Mediterranean and Aegean seas, as well as the country’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. It envisions Turkey’s power projected far into the contested waters off the country’s shores and emphasi<span lang="en-US" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">s</span>es the idea that Turkey should pay more attention to the maritime sphere, focus on marine delimitation agreements, tap into potential resources as a heavily energy-dependent country and be aware of its interests.</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“The things this man says should be taken seriously because he is the creator of theories that were taken very seriously by those, who govern Turkey and turned into official policies,” said <span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kızılyürek.</span></p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In fact, the recommendations by Yayc<span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ı regarding trade unions and journalists </span>are perfectly on par with what Erdo<span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ğan’s </span>Justice and Development Party AKP has been demanding from the Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition for some time now.</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For example, a controversial ‘Economic and Financial Cooperation Protocol’ signed between the northern part of Cyprus and Ankara earlier this year introduced conditions that, among others, limit the activities of trade unions by banning them from “engaging in political or ideological activities that go beyond their reasons of establishment<span lang="en-US" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span>; eliminate disinformation “used by civil society organisations and third countries that targets the TRNC-Turkey relations”<span lang="en-US" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">;</span> introduce an effective control against “disinformation” on social media; limit freedom of expression by making amendments to the penal law; and regulate the rules regarding the right of assembly and demonstration to introduce additional punishment “where the right to protest is used beyond the legal definition”<span lang="en-US" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span></p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lately, Turkish Cypriot journalists especially have been under growing pressure, facing detentions, criminal court-cases and a ban on entering Turkey. Just this week, journalist Kazim Denizci was detained and charged with “defending and promoting an illegal organisation” and “being in possession of malicious publications intended for propaganda that belong to an illegal organisation”, for sharing a news report published by the Kurdish Fırat News Agency on his social media page and on his news website.</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“They are trying to silence certain voices in the Turkish Cypriot community,” says K<span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ızılyürek, who has taken the issue </span>of the Turkish stop-list to the European Commission. “This is all part of the attack the Turkish Cypriots are faced with. They don’t want to hear anything about a ‘Turkish Cypriot identity.’ They want everyone to be in line with Turkey’s policies. There is a mainstreaming going on in the community.”</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">K<span lang="tr-TR" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ızılyürek recalled that </span>earlier this year, a Turkish politician, Doğu Perinçek, who, like Yaycı, represents the nationalist wing in Turkey, had criticised in a series of articles the bicommunal education programme <i style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Imagine</i>, saying that it aims at “brainwashing the youth” and creating “a consciousness of Cypriotness to make the Turkish Cypriot a minority to Greek Cypriots in a united Cyprus”. Shortly after, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar cancelled the participation of Turkish Cypriots in the programme, alleging it undermines the existence and policy of two states in Cyprus.</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Commentators agree that in the coming period, Turkey’s pressure on democratic, pro-peace, opposition Turkish Cypriots will increase.</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“The AKP has the aim of establishing a hegemony in Cyprus,” explains international relations expert Yonca Özdemir. “And they are determining who would be an obstacle in front of doing that. This is a process of determining who is against this hegemony and eliminating them. In the near future, the pressures on trade unions, NGOs and the media will further increase. Things will get worse. People will be targeted and silenced.”</p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; font-family: "Work Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Work Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://cyprus-mail.com/2022/11/27/noose-is-tightening-around-turkish-cypriots/">https://cyprus-mail.com/2022/11/27/noose-is-tightening-around-turkish-cypriots/</a></span></span></p>Esra Ayginhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02211806731601424262noreply@blogger.com0