‘New Ercan airport should be named after
Dr Fazıl Küçük’
FRESH calls have been made for the new Ercan airport terminal to be named after the late Turkish Cypriot leader Dr Fazıl Küçük.
The new terminal, which has been beset by years of delays, is now expected to open on November 15.
The Dr Fazıl Küçük International Airport Initiative and the Dr Fazıl Küçük Foundation said in a joint written statement that it should be named the “Dr Fazıl Küçük International Airport”.
Explaining the reason for the request, the statement pointed to examples around the world of largescale infrastructure projects that have been named after “great people” such as airports named after John F Kennedy in New York, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, and Adnan Menderes in İzmir.
The statement added that naming the new airport after Dr Fazıl Küçük “would contribute to the struggle for the existence of the Turkish Cypriots” while “weakening the hands of those who put out black propaganda claiming that the Cyprus problem started in 1974”.
The statement continued: “Based on this idea, we think that the name of Dr Fazıl Küçük, who started the struggle for the Turkish Cypriot people to live freely in these lands and led it until the end of his life, would suit our ‘new’ international airport . . . Our request is not to change the name of the existing airport but to give a ‘new’ name to our ‘new’ airport.”
The statement added that naming the airport after Dr Fazıl Küçük, who died in London in 1984, would provide the “opportunity to convey our true fight for existence and its leader to hundreds of thousands of our young citizens who will pass through there every year, our Turkish compatriots and tourists visiting our country, and most importantly our foreign students studying at our universities and their families”.
Ercan airport is named after Major Fehmi Ercan, who was killed on the first day of the Cyprus Peace Operation on July 20, 1974, while performing his duty as a forward air controller.
He died, along with
Colonel İbrahim Karaoğlanoğlu, during Greek Cypriot rocket attacks on his regimental headquarters.
In May 2021 a request by Mehmet Küçük, the son of Dr Fazıl Küçük, to
rename Ercan airport was met with dismay by the relatives of Major Ercan, who launched a petition against such a move, which was signed by thousands of people.