‘Greek Cypriots using lawyer case to disrupt UN envoy’s work’

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar said on Wednesday night that the arrest of Turkish Cypriot lawyer Akan Kursat is a move on the part of the Greek Cypriot side to disrupt the UN envoy’s work.

In a social media post, he said “recent developments, including the detention of lawyer Akan Kursat in Italy, are new examples of the general maximalist approaches of the Greek Cypriot leadership.”

“It is obvious that if such initiatives are not stopped, and are allowed to continue, relations between the two sides will deteriorate,” he said.

He said United Nations Secretary-general Antonio Guterres “appointed his personal representative, who is expected to begin her work to investigate whether there is common ground and ensure that a new and official negotiation process can begin.”

However, he said, “the Greek Cypriot side is trying to disrupt her work before it has even started and has once again revealed its true intentions with these attempts.”

“I call on the Greek Cypriot leadership, which is trying to use other countries for their political purposes by using their unfairly obtained status as a European Union member, is to not focus on actions which will obviously alienate the two sides from one another,” he said.

Meanwhile, the north’s ‘foreign minister’ Tahsin Ertugruloglu said in an interview with the Turkish Cypriot News Agency (Tak) that he considers UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar’s six-month term in the job to be enough.

“We consider that a period of six months is sufficient for [Cuellar] to determine whether common ground exists between the island’s two sides,” he said.

He added, “our expectation is that [she] publish a report which clearly records her conclusions regarding the facts on the island and her determination of whether there is common ground and includes objective and realistic recommendations for future steps.”