Controversial Turkish Sufi scholar Ahmet Unlu, colloquially known as ‘Cubbeli Ahmet’, on Thursday night said he regretted praying for Ersin Tatar in advance of October’s Turkish Cypriot leadership election, while Tatar responded by saying he had no recollection of ever meeting him.

The back-and-forth came after Tatar had said earlier on Thursday that Unlu had cost him five per cent of the vote with his statements, with Unlu saying that he had met Tatar “a few times”, according to newspaper the Independent’s Turkish edition’s editor-in-chief Nevzat Cicek.

“One of these meetings was via video call, and he asked me for prayers. I prayed for him both via video call and from the pulpit. How was I to know he was so faithless? My friends saw the news and told me. After seeing the news, I said, ‘so, you need to lose for God to make me pray for you’,” he said.

He then added that “later, I heard that his wife had made derogatory remarks about girls wearing veils who go to school in Cyprus”, and that as such, “after this, I regretted praying for him”.

Tatar then responded in post on social media, writing, “I do not recall ever meeting Cubbeli Ahmet”, and that “it is out of the question for me to have ever asked him to pray for me”.

Unlu’s reference to Tatar’s wife Sibel Tatar comes after she had twice attacked the north’s ruling coalition’s attempts earlier in the year to legalise the wearing of hijabs by children at public schools in the north.

She said that “this practice will definitely not be compatible with Cypriot Turkishness and the Cypriots”, adding that the matter “must not be used as a political tool”.

“This situation will serve no purpose other than to divide the people and to endanger our future. In other words, I do not think this can be done for three or five votes. It would show a great lack of conscience,” she said, before calling on the north’s ruling coalition to display “common sense” and “ensure peace within the country”.

Earlier, she had said she would have marched alongside the 13,000 Turkish Cypriots who demonstrated against the ruling coalition at the beginning of April had she not attended a museum opening with her husband, who was Turkish Cypriot leader at the time.

Ersin Tatar and his wife Sibel Tatar

Unlu had initially become incensed on Thursday after Tatar had said of his intervention in October’s election that “this people do not fall for stuff like that”.

“He cost me five per cent of the vote. Like, thanks a bunch, he cost me five per cent of the vote,” he said.

Tatar lost the Turkish Cypriot leadership election by a 27-point margin, winning 35.8 per cent of the vote to Tufan Erhurman’s 62.8 per cent.