The Turkish Cypriot Bar Association has rejected an invitation to participate in the meeting named The “Legal, Political and Economic Aspects of the Maraş Initiative” to be held in the fenced-off town on Saturday, 15 February.
The round table meeting, organised by the Turkish Bar Association, will be attended by high level officials including Prime Minister Ersin Tatar, Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Kudret Ozersay, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay and Turkey’s Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül.
The Chairman of the Turkish Cypriot Bar Association, Hasan Esendağlı, said that the Bar Association did not consider it appropriate to participate in the process. He said he was informed of the event two months ago and invited to co-organise it, but such an event cannot be prepared in such a short time.
The report by ‘Yeni Duzen’ notes that President Mustafa Akinci was not invited to the meeting. Responding to questions from the newspaper, sources at the presidency said they had no information about the event and that the President had not been invited to attend.
In addition, the chairman of the Republican Turkish Party (CTP), Tufan Erhurman, criticised the fact that President Akinci had not been invited to the meeting. In a social media post, Mr Ehrman argued that this was neither right nor acceptable in terms of democratic practices. He said that the presidential elections were coming and that no one could claim that the Famagusta issue did not concern the domain of powers and responsibilities of the president of a democracy.
Yeni Duzen
