Upset in Kormakitis over local elections

The intransigence and mentality that prevails in some circles in Ankara is dictated through their settlers in occupied Cyprus, President Nicos Anastasiades said on Tuesday, joining the chorus condemning the exclusion of a candidate from running in the local elections in the occupied village of Kormakitis.

On Monday it emerged that the ‘foreign ministry’ in the north had banned restaurant owner Maria Skoullou from claiming the position of community leader.

This sparked various reactions in the north, with rumours circling that current community leader Antonis Sarros was the one who submitted an objection to her candidacy.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency on Tuesday, Sarros denied any involvement in the case, and threatened media outlets printing this claim with lawsuits.

Asim Akansoy, secretary general of Turkish Cypriot opposition party CTP, had denounced the move to exclude Skoullou as “humiliating”, questioning whether there was any legal basis to it. “What happened is racist, it’s fascist,” he said.

On Tuesday, CNA reported that former president of the Turkish Democratic Party, Serdar Denktash, stepped into the fray to remind that in 2005, the government in the north had given Maronites living in the enclaved village the right to elect their own mukhtars.

“As foreign minister at the time, I had said that they would be able to elect their own mukhtars, as we would not accept the ones designated by the Greek Cypriot side as interlocutors.”

Up until then, Kormakitis’ community leaders had been appointed by the Republic of Cyprus.

“Today, the party that says it wants a two-state solution refuses to allow the residents of this village to determine their community leaders,” he said.

“As long as you act by excluding one of the two candidates without elections and saying, ‘this is your community leader’ to the Maronites…they are not going to accept the one you appointed, but the one appointed from the south.”

Later on in the day, President Nicos Anastasiades was called to comment while at a foundation stone laying ceremony for the Maronite sporting centre in Pano Deftera.

Saying the government in the north is adopting Ankara’s intransigence, he said its stance is “not just reprehensible, but unacceptable and unthinkable”.

“But as we see the mayor of Istanbul being sentenced, was it possible for Ankara’s mouthpieces to change their mentality and tactics towards a candidate community leader of an occupied village?” he said.

“I express my regret for the inadmissibility of the attitude, of course,” he said.

Asked whether he will raise this issue with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar when he sees him, he questioned whether he would listen, and how much sway he would have “when unfortunately the orders are straight from Ankara”.

Meanwhile, on Monday the ‘ministry of foreign affairs’ took a stance on the matter in a written statement, saying that “each state has the authority to make decisions based on its administrative authority and sovereign rights”.