Oktay Saral, one of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top advisors, on Thursday attacked the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel over his handling of the ongoing “headscarf crisis” in the wake of the north’s ruling coalition’s decision to legalise the wearing of hijabs at public schools.

Saral tweeted a video of Ustel speaking in ‘parliament’ last week about how he had been “saddened” by the heightening of rhetoric over the matter.

In that speech, Ustel had made specific reference to Ibrahim Damar, the imam of the mosque in the northern Nicosia suburb of Mandres, who had described teachers opposed to hijabs as “infidels” and said he would refuse to lead a funeral service for “anyone who opposes headscarves”.

“First of all, a friend of ours in the religious department made different speeches. First of all, I want you to know that we have removed the friend who is in the religious department. After the investigation is completed, the necessary punishment will be given,” he said.

“We did not do nothing while social media attacks were being made against the people of Cyprus, against people from all sides. All of them have been reported to the people because we want reconciliation in society.”

Saral was less than impressed by this speech, and described Ustel as a “bosbakan”, a play on the word “basbakan”, which means “prime minister” in Turkish, with “bos” meaning “empty”.

“The TRNC’s empty minister did not speak nicely, he just babbled on. Should the Imam be hostile towards the headscarf?” he began.

“What a shame, we could not save Cyprus from Greek Cypriot-ness”.

The north’s ruling coalition has twice legalised the wearing of hijabs by children at public schools, firstly doing so in March, before withdrawing the regulation and then re-issuing it earlier this month.

This has provoked a fierce backlash among the population, with an estimated 13,000 Turkish Cypriots having taken to the streets to protest against the regulation last week and around 2,000 people having gathered outside ‘parliament’ on Monday as fires were lit outside the building in protest.

Since then, nightly protests have been ongoing outside ‘parliament’, with fires lit every evening and a string of trade union leaders and political figures having made speeches, while artistic performances also taking place.

Cyprus Turkish teachers’ trade union (Ktos) leader Burak Mavis told the Cyprus Mail that the nightly fire protests would continue every weekday until April 28 – the  “deadline” trade unions have set the ruling coalition for the hijabs’ legalisation to be withdrawn, lest measures escalate.