A man arrested at Nice airport on Monday owns a large construction firm in northern Cyprus, with his arrest having been confirmed to the Cyprus Mail by diplomatic sources on Tuesday.

The man, named as 39-year-old Behdad Jafari was arrested after arriving at Nice airport on an inbound flight from Istanbul on Monday, with it understood that he was arrested on the basis of a warrant put out by the Republic of Cyprus’ authorities in relation to his construction company, named Isatis.

Isatis was founded in 2015, and over the last decade has carried out various construction projects, primarily in and around the Famagusta district village of Ayios Sergios, but also in and around Trikomo and the Famagusta district village of Akanthou, among other locations.

It has not yet been confirmed whether those properties were built on land which was owned by Greek Cypriots prior to 1974.

Jafari is Iranian by birth, and was naturalised as a citizen of the ‘TRNC’ in May 2023, on the same day as Fatih Buyuktopcu, the owner of newspaper Kibris.

He had obtained a multiple entry visa to visit France on July 25 from the country’s embassy in Ankara, using his Iranian passport, with that visa having been set to expire next week.

Reports of his arrest had provoked the fury of Turkish Cypriot contractors’ association Cafer Gurcafer, who told news website Kibris Postasi that it is “becoming increasingly impossible for Turkish Cypriot capital to open up to the world”.

“We can no longer go anywhere in the world. We are trapped in northern Cyprus … Doing business in northern Cyprus is not easy. How can investments be made if 85 per cent of the land faces the same legal problems?”

He also criticised the Turkish Cypriot authorities for doing “completely nothing” about the matter, and said they have “not supported” the Immovable Property Commission, which had been set up in 2005 with the aim of resolving issues related to property in the north with a view to a federal solution to the Cyprus problem.

“We are disappearing. Either we will resolve this issue diplomatically, or we will disappear. There is no other way,” he said.

He also likened Jafari’s situation to that of Israeli businessman Simon Aykut, who on Monday plead guilty to 40 charges related to the development and sale of Greek Cypriot-owned property in the north.

“A citizen of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has been captured. What are we doing? What diplomatic initiative are we taking? Nothing. Just like Simon Aykut, he has been left to his fate,” he said, before decrying the fact that “we have not even attempted to set up a meeting to resolve these issues”.

Aykut’s guilty plea is not the first to be entered as part of the ongoing arrests of individuals regarding the alleged illegal use, development, and sale of Greek Cypriot-owned property in the north.

In May, two Hungarian women were sentenced to two and a half years and 15 months in prison respectively after advertising the sale of houses in the north on their social media accounts and websites.

Meanwhile, a German woman who was arrested after having a conversation aboard a flight with Elam member of the European parliament Geadis Geadi in which prosecutors allege that she admitted to selling Greek Cypriot-owned property in the north remains in custody.

The north retaliated in July, arresting five Greek Cypriots near Trikomo.

One of the five Greek Cypriots has been charged with illegally entering the north when the five crossed into the north via the Strovilia crossing point, near Famagusta, on July 19, while the other four are accused of aiding and abetting the illegal entry. The five Greek Cypriots deny the charges.

It is expected that a verdict will be handed down in that case on Monday.

Meanwhile, two of the five will next appear at a civilian court in Trikomo next Tuesday.

There, they face charges of privacy violations, which they allegedly committed while in Trikomo on July 19. The remaining three Greek Cypriots had earlier faced charges of trespassing and breaching the peace, but those charges were dropped on October 1.

All five remain on bail, with the north’s supreme court having found in two separate cases that earlier remand orders against them had been handed down illegally.