PRESIDENT
TALAT: "ISOLATIONS SHOULD BE LIFTED"
President Mehmet Ali Talat
in his speech given to American News Agency "Associated Press" on 19 May
2006 reiterated that the isolations imposed upon the Turkish Cypriots
should be lifted.
Reminding that there was a
"standstill in the process" regarding the settlement of the Cyprus issue,
President Talat said the lifting of the isolations would be an impulsive
force towards improving on the relations between Turkish and Greek
Cypriots.
Referring to the claims
about a possible crisis to emerge in Turkey’s EU process for not opening
her air and seaports to the Greek Cypriots, President Talat said he
believed that the EU and the international actors do not want such a
crisis, but the continuation of the Turkish Cypriots’ isolation could
create a crisis.
The President added that
Turkey’s policy on this issue was the right policy.
ELECTIONS
CARRIED OUT IN SOUTH CYPRUS
In South Cyprus,
Parliamentarian elections in order to identify 56 MPs were carried out
yesterday (21 May). According to the first official results, there hasn’t
been any change in the political equilibrium of South Cyprus and the
communist party AKEL polled 31,16% of votes, DISI polled 30,33% of votes
and Papadopoulos’ party DIKO polled 17,91% of votes.
According to the first
results, when compared to the ratio of votes in 2001 Parliamentary
elections, while there has been a 3,55% decrease in AKEL’s votes and 3,67%
decrease in DISI’s votes, there has been a 3,07% increase in the votes of
DIKO.
TRNC PROMOTED
IN GERMAN " TOURISTIK AKTUEL" MAGAZINE
One of the biggest tourism
magazines in Germany "Touristik Aktuel" (www.touristik-aktuell.de),
in its May-June edition promoted the TRNC and published the speech given
by the Under-Secretary of the TRNC Ministry of Economy and Tourism Mehmet
Basel in the annual meeting of the German Agencies Union TSS Group, which
has 1700 members.
Touristic Actuel magazine,
which is published every two months in Germany, in its 5-page article
about North Cyprus entitled "More Beds for North Cyprus", stating that
North Cyprus has been living under embargoes since 1974 and as a result of
this the expected development in Country’s tourism couldn’t be achieved,
said "now its time to achieve some developments". The article reminding
that tourism played an important role in the development of the island’s
economy, said the TRNC Government gave a big importance to tourism.
Pointing out that since the
opening of the borders between North and South Cyprus, the number of
German tourists crossing over to the TRNC, which was 19 thousand in 2004,
has increased to 47 thousand in 2005 and while some of these tourists
visited the TRNC on a daily basis, most of them stayed in the hotels in
North Cyprus.
The article stated that
while many tour operators were organizing tours to North Cyprus and people
by hired cars and taxis could easily cross over to North Cyprus, the Greek
Cypriots did not give permission to commercial vehicles from the North to
cross over to the South.
LA LIBRE
BELGIQUE PUBLISHED MAP OF CYPRUS WITH TWO STATES
One of the most important
newspapers in Belgium, La Libre Belgique (www.lalibre.be),
published an article on 20 May 2006 about the parliamentary elections in
South Cyprus and stated that in the Northern part of the island there was
a Turkish Cypriot state and in the Southern part there was a Greek Cypriot
state.
The map of Cyprus, which
was published with the said article, clearly shows the existence of the
two states in the island. The map also shows the borders between the two
states.
For the first time, a
European press organ referred to North Cyprus as the Turkish Cypriot state.
