Netflix’s Middle East public policy director Pelin Mavili has been summoned to speak at the Turkish parliamentary digital media committee over its decision to air Famagusta TV series, committee chairman and ruling AK Party MP Huseyin Yayman said on Tuesday.

He said he had already met with Mavili, and that she will speak at a committee meeting after parliament reopens on October 1. She will be questioned about the Greek television series, which is set to appear on Netflix later this month.

The series is based on the events of 1974 and shows Greek Cypriots fleeing Varosha during the second phase of Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus.

“The Turkish nation has a clear opinion on this series … We never approve of the Greek Cypriot side unfairly distorting the Cyprus problem through a surrealist series which is disconnected from reality and pulling it in a different direction through propaganda. Cyprus is Turkish and will remain Turkish,” Yayman said.

He added that it was “very meaningful” that the series had been set in Varosha and issued a warning to Netflix over the platform’s decision to host the series.

“We never approve or endorse the broadcasting of this series on Netflix. Netflix is one of the platforms with the most subscribers in Turkey … We continue our hopeful stance that the sensitivities of Turkey, which is such a large market, and the sensitivities of our nation will be taken into consideration and a solution will be found,” he said.

At the same time, he insisted that he and his party “opposes bans and censorship” but refused to categorically rule out the possibility that the series could be banned in Turkey.

“We believe that bans, censorship, and obstructions are not a solution, but, in the final analysis, we believe that preserving the balance between freedom and security is also very important,” he said.

Turning his attention back to the matter of Cyprus, he said, “just as [Greek Cypriots] make series and films about their unjust cases and make propaganda out of them, we do not need propaganda.

“We also need to tell the truth about the glorious resistance in Kokkina, the Bloody Christmas, the massacres in Maratha and Santalari.”

Earlier, politicians from both Greece and Turkey had locked horns on the issue. Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis defended the series, saying, “the Turkish invasion of Cyprus is an issue which is not open to multiple interpretations. History has recorded it.”

He was reacting to comments made by Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, who had said, digital broadcasting platforms “must not be used as tools for Greek Cypriot propaganda.”

Yayman joins Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar in calling for a new series to be commissioned to tell Turkey’s version of the story, with Tatar describing the idea as a “counter-series”.

Such a series had been created in 2021, when Turkish public broadcaster TRT aired a show first called Bir Zamanlar Kibris (Once Upon a Time in Cyprus) and then Kibris: Zafere Dogru (Cyprus: Towards Victory).

That series had depicted events on the island between 1963 and 1974, and also faced backlash at the time.