‘Turkish Cypriots are counting down the days to get rid of Tatar’

The Turkish Cypriot people “are counting down the days to get rid of the burden of Tatar”, opposition party CTP secretary-general Asim Akansoy said of incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Saturday.

Akansoy’s intervention is the latest in a back and forth between Tatar and the CTP over the party’s decision to send its leader Tufan Erhurman to New York for meetings on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month.

Akansoy was keen to point out that Tatar’s first term five-year in office will come to an end in a year, with elections set to take place next October, but was also ready to say that one year is not soon a year.

“Our advice to him is to resign as soon as possible without waiting for that year to elapse, so we can get rid of the impasse he has fallen into and the shame of democracy for which he is responsible, and to pave the way for the Turkish Cypriot people to move forward,” he said.

Of Tatar’s four years in office so far, he said, “he could not make even a single gain during his term of office, abandoned negotiations, and left our people leaderless, has once again shown that he has nothing like the capacity or ability to represent the Turkish Cypriot people”.

He also criticised Tatar’s efforts earlier in the week to solve the deadlock which had engulfed the north’s ‘parliament’ over its failure to elect a ‘speaker’.

“Tatar, who should have focused all his attention on the informal meeting in New York, has been trying to solve this meaningless crisis in parliament which came about due to internal conflicts inside [ruling coalition party] the UBP,” he said.

He added, “one of the leading actors in the process, of whom everyone, without exception, in parliament was ashamed, was Ersin Tatar.”

Akansoy’s comments come a day after Tatar had said discussing a potential federal solution to the Cyprus problem would constitute a “betrayal”, and criticised the CTP for sending Erhurman and the party’s foreign relations secretary Fikri Toros to New York.

“I was elected president of this country. They do not represent the Turkish Cypriot people. Those who are continuing talks for a federation are making a big mistake. This is a betrayal,” he said.

The CTP, Erhurman and Toros are advocates of a federal solution to the Cyprus problem, and Toros had made no secret of the fact that the trip was an opportunity for the party to present Erhurman as an alternative, pro-reunification Turkish Cypriot leader to Tatar.