President condemns flag burning incident
PRESIDENT Ersin Tatar has condemned the burning of TRNC flags during demonstrations held on the Greek Cypriot side of Cyprus organised by the youth branch of the Greek Cypriot far-right party Elam.
Images shared in the media and online showed the makeshift flags being set on fire in protest against the 39th anniversary of the proclamation of the TRNC, which was on Tuesday.
Criticising the act harshly in his statement, Mr Tatar said: “We have witnessed once again that hostility to Turkey, the TRNC and Turkish people have reached its peak in South Cyprus.
“Greek Cypriot youths marched and protested against the 39th anniversary of the proclamation of the TRNC with the encouragement of the Greek Cypriot Education Ministry.
“They chanted ‘We will return to Girne’, ‘Morphou [Güzelyurt] and Varosha [Maraş]
are ours’ and ‘Cyprus is Greek’ and they burned our flag.”
Accusing the Greek Cypriot authorities of “brainwashing” Greek Cypriot young people, Mr Tatar said they and the “Greek Orthodox Church have raised the youth as racist, fascist and Turcophobe”.
Mr Tatar continued: “Our flags are the honour of our people. The TRNC was established in the wake of a difficult struggle that had been waged since 1878 with the will of our people who had exercised their self-determination rights.
“Our flag and TRNC are our sanctuaries and the necessary response will be given to the ones who harm them.”
Other images showed people holding up signs in Greek that appeared to say “Mongolian Turks”.
It is not the first time that
Elam members have burned TRNC flags on November 15. In 2019 Elam members were warned that they would be arrested if they tried to cross to the TRNC after a video of them burning what appeared
to be a homemade TRNC flag was shared on online.
Under the 1984 Flag Act, an offender can be jailed for up to six months, fined or both, if found guilty of desecrating the TRNC flag.