
The President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs should make representations against the Greek Cypriot moves to ban British visitors to Cyprus from crossing to the north, leader of the People’s Party (HP) Kudret Ozersay has said.
In a press release by the HP, Ozersay said that the Greek Cypriot side is interfering with North Cyprus’ tourism by publishing a new document. Such a move was unacceptable, he said. “The United Kingdom is not a member of the EU. There has been a problem of banning the passage of tourists to our country through their regions”, said Ozersay.
“What needs to be done now is for the President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to complain as soon as possible against this move, which means undermining tourism, as we did while in office”. The arrival of tourists via the south is part of the lifeblood of the Turkish Cypriots, Ozersay said.
While in office, former Foreign Minister Ozersay, former President Mustafa Akinci and others wrote to the EU complaining that from February, 2020, the Greek Cypriot side had been preventing tourists from the EU and EU nationals resident in North Cyprus from crossing from the south to North Cyprus. The President of the European Commission Ursula Van der Leyden’s office responded by saying that this was merely temporary and was due to health measures for the pandemic. Ozersay said that the move was political and an attempt to damage the tourist sector so vital to North Cyprus.
Ozersay stated that when he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, they had had similar crises regarding visitors from Russia and Israel who had flown to the south of the island in order to cross to the north and that those problems had been solved by the diplomatic initiatives he had taken as minister.
BRTK