Minister for the Interior Ayşegül Baybars has said that she does not know the exact population numbers in North Cyprus.
“To tell the truth, I am ashamed when I talk about this issue”, she admitted yesterday on Genc TV. She added:
“The people who enter into the country should be registered. Otherwise Mr Denktas [Minister of Finance] will come out and say 800 thousand and someone else will come out and say something else”.
Pointing out the importance of shaping a policy on the issue of population, Baybars argued that this was not possible within a year, because “the problem was that there were many unregistered persons when we came into government”. She also said:
“A registration system should be created in order to be able to talk about the population. At the moment there are 53 thousand registered students. There are 7-8 thousand employees with a work permit and persons accompanying their spouse. We have started building the registration mechanism”.
Afrika
