HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Celebrations held to mark 39 years of the TRNC
CELEBRATIONS were held across the country this week to mark 39 years since the proclamation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Official events began on Monday with a 21-gun salute before President Ersin Tatar addressed the nation on state broadcaster BRT.
In his address, he paid tribute to the “heroic people, whose hard work, efforts and great sacrifices laid down the foundations of the TRNC”.
“If we are able to live freely today, as an independent and sovereign people in our own homeland under the shadow of our own flag, we owe this to the epic resistance of our people, to our martyrs and to the help and support of Motherland Türkiye [Turkey], who has always supported us and stood by us,” he said.
Later in the day a “Republic Day” procession was held in Lefkoşa from the Education Ministry to the Presidency building while wreathes were laid at the mausoleums of Turkish Cypriot leader Dr Fazıl Küçük and the founding President of the TRNC, Rauf Raif Denktaş.
On Tuesday, November 15, the date the TRNC was declared in 1983, President Tatar received wellwishers before travelling to a wreath-laying ceremony at the Atatürk Statue in Lefkoşa and then on to Dr Fazıl Küçük Bulvarı in Lefkoşa for the main military parade and fly-past.
He gave a speech before the start of the parade, in which he said that if there is to be a solution to the
Cyprus problem it must be based on “sovereign equality”, adding that the “time has come” for the TRNC to be recognised.
Turkish Grand National Assembly speaker Mustafa Şentop, representing the Republic of Turkey at the event, said in his speech that the TRNC will be recognised “sooner or later”.
During the parade students, who also took part, wore the new North Cyprus Puma national football jerseys while 13 TRNC-produced Günsel electric cars took part in the parade for the first time.
Ceremonies were also held in other parts of North
Cyprus while the “SoloTürk”, an F16 demonstration jet belonging to the Turkish Air Force, put on a breathtaking aerobatics display in the skies above Girne in the afternoon.
Events were also held at TRNC embassies, consulates and representative offices in Turkey and other countries.
A ceremony in the Turkish city of Mersin had to be cut short after the TRNC consul general Zahile Mendeli collapsed while making a speech and had to be taken to hospital.