Tatar ‘making moves’ to build new court buildings in the north

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Monday night said he is “making moves” on the matter of building new court buildings in the north.

All of the court buildings in the north except for those in Trikomo date back to the British colonial period, with northern Nicosia’s courthouse having first opened in 1904.

However, Tatar said on Monday that the buildings are now “inadequate”, and thus said moves were underway for new buildings to be constructed in Ayios Dhometios, near the currently under-construction ‘presidential’ palace and ‘parliament’.

Tatar’s plans for northern Nicosia’s courthouse to be moved to Ayios Dhometios would see all three branches of the north’s ‘government’ moved out of the centre of Nicosia, with Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz saying the ‘presidential’ palace and ‘parliament’ buildings will likely be completed by November or December.

The new complex is located across 400,000 square metres of land and will see Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s official residence move out of Nicosia’s walled city and the north’s ‘parliament’ leave the former Dianellos cigarette factory in northern Nicosia’s Koskluciftlik neighbourhood.