Karpaz protection rules to change

CHANGES to rules protecting the Karpaz are to be announced on Friday, amid heated debate after Prime Minister Hüseyin Özgürgün promised to “rip up that monstrosity, the Karpaz Decree” during pre-election campaigning in the area.

Biologist and spokesman for the Environment Platform Hasan Sarpten fumed: “Mr Özgürgün believes that absurd election promises will fool our people without revealing scientific data, and no legal possibility of doing so. We need a stronger, data-backed eco-, agri-tourism model with the legally required zoning plan for the region.”

But Tourism and Environment Minister Fikri Ataoğlu told CyprusToday: “This issue is nothing to do with elections. We held a series of stakeholder meetings all over the Karpaz last year . . . but any changes to the decree will be appropriate for the Karpaz.”

A Dipkarpaz Municipality spokesman said plans for a restaurant and toilets on Golden Beach — where the removal of wooden bungalows sparked fears of planned development — had been rejected by the Supreme Monuments Commission, but they were “expecting some development to be allowed on the perimeter of the village, mainly to the south”.

“We have no desire to end up like Girne,” he commented.

Mayor Suphi Coşkun described his area as “perhaps the most distressed . . . but we have shown that things can be changed . . . and we have never lost our belief that Dipkarpaz will regain its old appeal”.