Turkish Cypriot economist Mertkan Hamit on Wednesday said he had been denied entry to Turkey after finding himself on the country’s N-82 list.

Being on the N-82 list means that one must apply in advance to the Turkish embassy in their country for pre-clearance to enter the country.

Hamit had flown from the north’s Ercan (Tymbou) airport to Ankara’s Esenboga airport on Tuesday and wrote in a post on social media that upon arriving in Ankara, he had not been allowed to enter Turkey.

“I spent last night at Esenboga airport with a group of Uzbek and Kyrgyz citizens with visa issues in a ‘waiting room’ full of bunkbeds, which belonged to the immigration office. The staff were polite. Everyone else was suffering,” he said.

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He then quipped that given that those with whom he was sharing a room were citizens of other states of the Organisation of Turkic States (OTS), “we held a mini summit in the bunkbed room” and that “I hung out as an observer”.

He said he was deported back to the north on Wednesday morning and that it had been listed that there were “184+1 people on the plane”. He said he was the “+1”, and that he was listed as “INAD” on the flight data.

“INAD” in aviation terms is short for “inadmissible passenger”, meaning that an airline must return a passenger to their country of origin after they were refused entry to their planned destination.

Hamit said the gate agent at Esenboga airport had “questioned the situation”, and that he had replied, “perhaps being Cypriot is enough”.

“I took my first, and probably last flight from the new Ercan airport. Even if they put barbed wire through the middle of the island … the reality on the ground will not change. After all, Cyprus is an island, and there are two other airports on this island,” he said.

It is currently believed that around 15 Turkish Cypriots are on either Turkey’s N-82 list, or its G-82 list, which entails an outright ban from entering Turkey.

Neither list is publicly available, and as such, those on it generally do not find out until they arrive in Turkey.

Earlier in the year, Turkish Cypriot legislators had decried a lack of progress regarding the ruling coalition’s attempts to seek clarification on the situation of people being banned from Turkey.

Opposition party CTP ‘MP’ Sami Ozuslu said that some people had written to the Turkish embassy in northern Nicosia asking for clarification after being refused entry to Turkey, but that the embassy “did not even respond”.

“More interestingly, the TRNC prime minister Unal Ustel himself said that he received no response when he had written a letter,” he added.

“I would like to hear this on behalf of the government: did you bring this issue onto the agenda when the latest protocol was signed with the Turkish foreign minister [Hakan Fidan]?”

He also pointed out that the ruling coalition had last year blocked the creation of a ‘parliamentary’ investigation committee into the circumstances surrounding the placement of Cypriots on the two lists.

Ruling coalition party UBP ‘MP’ Zorlu Tore, however, defended the coalition’s lack of action on the matter, saying that those who appeared on the lists should have chosen their words more carefully.

“If you slander Turkey, make serious insults, make statements which will harm Turkey’s integrity, how much right do you have to make such statements, just because you are in the TRNC, without taking into consideration the issues stipulated in Turkey’s constitution?” he asked.