Hakan Moral was on Thursday named the north’s new religious affairs director.

He will officially commence his duties on Saturday, taking over from Ahmet Unsal, having previously been a board member of the foundations administration (Evkaf) and the religious affairs directorate’s Nicosia district chairman.

Unsal’s dismissal was announced at the beginning of the month, with the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel having reportedly raised the matter during a visit to Turkey in December.

News website Bugun Kibris reported that Ustel had “conveyed to [Turkish President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan and [Vice President] Cevdet Yilmaz that [Unsal] had caused problems among religious officials, that lawsuits had been filed against him, and that he was perceived negatively by the public”.

As such, Erdogan and Yilmaz acquiesced to Ustel’s proposal to relieve Unsal of his duties.

Unsal was appointed as religious affairs director in 2021, and found himself at the centre of controversy in January 2023 after telling a seminar in Famagusta what he believed an “acceptable wife” should do, with one of those things being that “you must accept your husband’s invitation to bed”.

He also criticised women for having cats and jobs, and said women should “stay away from all men except their husbands”.

On the matter of marriage, he said, “marriages are expensive now, ladies are very expensive. You used to be able to buy four, so if one woman wasn’t enough, there would be three more”.

Additionally, he said, “Allah loves his married servant more than his single servant and the thing Allah hates most is divorce”.