ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th August, 2021) Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades denied the allegation on Wednesday that Nicosia's move to cancel the passports of government officials of the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was racist and violated human rights.
All Turkish Cypriot officials, whose breakaway government is recognized only by Turkey, hold passports of the Republic of Cyprus. On Monday, the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government said it would revoke the passports of fourteen North Cyprus administrative officials for undermining the republic's sovereignty. Northern Cyprus leader Ersin Tatar decried the move as racist, insisting that Cyprus is home to "two peoples" with equal rights.
In response, Anastasiades recalled Tatar's previous public statement that Turkish Cypriots are distinguished from Greeks as a different race with a different language, homeland, and religion.
"Thus, the allegations of discrimination are unfounded, since the cancellation of passports concerns a strictly limited number of persons whose actions undermine the independence, sovereignty and status of the Republic of Cyprus, and not, of course, all of our Turkish Cypriot compatriots," Anastasiades said in a statement.
He also dismissed Tatar's accusation of discrimination, stressing that Nicosia had issued 97,000 travel passes and over 110,000 documents confirming the Cypriot citizenship of Turkish Cypriots.
Relations between Cyprus' Greek south and Turkish north have been strained for decades and took another dive last month, when Tatar, backed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, unilaterally demilitarized part of a closed buffer zone. Varosha had been closed to the public and deserted since the 1974 war, which split the island nation into two.
