North’s largest party to be absent from New York amid rumours of rift with Tatar

The UBP, the north’s largest political party, will not send a delegation to this week’s enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem in New York, amid rumours of a rift between high-profile members of the party and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar.

The party’s secretary-general Oguzhan Hasipoglu announced the move during an interview with Kanal T, the television channel Tatar owned until November 2023, saying, “no one from the UBP is going to New York because we do not have high expectations”.

The Cyprus Mail understands that the decision not to invite delegations from political parties to New York was made by Tatar himself and not the parties after President Nikos Christodoulides had elected not to invite the National council to the enlarged meeting.

However, while Hasipoglu was confirming his non-attendance of the New York meeting, rumours were abounding of a feud between Tatar and the UBP.

News website Giynik reported that tensions between Tatar and the party were raised during a breakfast held at the Concorde hotel in Kioneli on the occasion of the visit of Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz to the island.

According to the website, Tatar had “made harsh remarks towards other members of his party” during the breakfast.

“The media slammed me. They said I would lose, but the people at this table remained silent and did not react,” Tatar is quoted as saying.

He then reportedly said UBP remembers also “remain silent” when opposition party the CTP, the party to whom his main challenger at this October’s election Tufan Erhurman belongs, “slams” him.

The same report said Tatar’s remarks “drew harsh criticism” from high-ranking UBP members who were present at the breakfast, and that “tensions rose significantly”.

In addition, the report states that Yilmaz “watched in stunned silence”, and that he was “stunned by Tatar’s complaints”.

Tatar had been a member of the UBP until his election at Turkish Cypriot leader in October 2020, with the ‘TRNC’s’ constitution requiring that elected Turkish Cypriot leaders relieve themselves of party political ties upon entering office. As such, he will officially run in October as an independent.

He won the party’s endorsement for this year’s election in April, and went on to launch his election campaign last month with the endorsement of two other ruling coalition parties, the the DP and the YDP.

However, relations between Tatar and the UBP have not been entirely smooth sailing, with ‘MP’ Ali Pilli having criticised him for refusing to meet Christodoulides amid the arrests made by the Republic of Cyprus of people accused of selling Greek Cypriot-owned property in the north.

“If he wants a meeting, you will hold the meetings. Why would you not? Whether it is a three-party meeting or a five-party meeting, when you speak there, the world hears it. You will go out and speak,” he told the north’s ‘parliament’ in May.

“You will not get anywhere by remaining silent, you will not remain silent. If you are right, you will seek your rights, but unfortunately, we remain silent.”

Previously, it had been reported that Huseyin Ozgurgun, the former Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ who fled the north to Istanbul in 2019 after 16 million TL (around €2m at the time) which he had not formally declared was found in his bank account, could return to frontline politics.

Some at the time had even suggested that the UBP may nominate Ozgurgun rather than endorse Tatar for this October’s election, though this never came to pass.