The north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel flew to Ankara on Thursday to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz in the wake of a scathing attack launched on him by Erdogan’s advisor Oktay Saral.

Multiple news outlets have reported that Ustel is expected to “openly bring up” the matter during his meetings with Erdogan and Yilmaz, and that Saral’s attack had “caused discomfort” both in the north and in Ankara.

Saral had described Ustel as a “bosbakan”, a play on the word “basbakan”, which means “prime minister” in Turkish, with “bos” meaning “empty”, before adding, “what a shame, we could not save Cyprus from Greek Cypriot-ness”.

With the furore over his comments reaching fever pitch on Wednesday afternoon, he sought to clarify, saying, “my words are directed at the mentality which unfortunately still applies freedom only according to their own beliefs, to those who still discriminate and alienate our veiled girls”.

He added that they were directed at “those who adopt the Greek Cypriot mentality, despise Islam, and try to be against Muslims, and unfortunately, we have been witnessing this frequently of late”.

He said that his comments were “of course not generalisations of the TRNC”, and added, “I ask for forgiveness from my brothers and sisters who were heartbroken and offended by what I wrote”.

His comments were met with condemnation across the Turkish Cypriot political spectrum, with ‘deputy prime minister’ Fikri Ataoglu describing them as “inappropriate and degrading”.

He added that they “both damage the honour of our people and cast a shadow over the strong ties between these two brotherly countries”.

“The Turkish Cypriot people have resolutely protected their identity, beliefs, and values in the past and in the present and have been in favour of a relationship based on respect and equality,” he said.

‘Transport minister’ Erhan Arikli called on Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar to “do what is necessary” about Saral and described the comments as “extremely unfortunate and inappropriate”.

It was Arikli who had organised last week’s protest to show “respect to the motherland” alongside around 300 people, with the promise that a bigger demonstration would be held on April 26 with the same message.

However, in light of Saral’s comments and following a telephone call with opposition party the CTP’s foreign relations secretary Fikri Toros, he announced on Thursday that he had cancelled the event.

“After recent events, I do not think it would be right for us to hold this ally at this stage … The peace, unity, and solidarity of our country are more important than anything else,” he said.

CTP leader Tufan Erhurman also condemned Saral’s comments, writing, “he is the peak of impudence of a mentality which does not know this country, this people, our history, and the fight we are fighting in this country, and has no intention of learning about it”.

He did not spare Ustel or Tatar or the rest of the north’s ruling coalition criticism of his own, however, saying that their previous deference to Turkey had laid the groundwork for some to feel empowered to make such statements.

“This is the point to which you have brought relations between the Republic of Turkey and the TRNC, with your lack of will. You prepared the ground for these people to be told these things. Let those who stayed quiet keep quiet. It is not anyone’s place to insult these people, no matter what their position is. We will never allow this,” he said.

Tatar himself released a statement on Thursday evening, saying he was “deeply saddened” by Saral’s comments, adding that they were “unfortunate and divisive”.

“We have complete support for our prime minister, Unal Ustel. I would like to clearly state that there is no reason for anyone to doubt the Turkish Cypriots’ Muslim or Turkish identity,” he said.

Other condemnations came from Oguzhan Hasipoglu, the secretary-general of Ustel’s party the UBP, and Resmiye Canaltay, the daughter of former Turkish Cypriot leader Dervish Eroglu.

Oguzhan said his party “considers these statements to be the product of political shortsightedness and an understanding far removed from diplomatic courtesy”, adding that they constituted “irresponsible rhetoric”.

Canaltay said Turkish Cypriots “have fought to survive, have fought to exist, but at no point in history have we fought to ‘become Greek Cypriots’”.

“We did not start this fight so that they could insult our religion, our Turkishness, our race, our ancestors,” she added.