Cyprus will lodge a protest with the United Nations over Turkey’s new financial assistance deal with breakaway Turkish Cypriots that demonstrates Ankara’s “complete control” over them, the president of the ethnically divided island nation said Monday.
President Nicos Anastasiades, a Greek Cypriot, told state broadcaster CyBC that he would also include in the protest letter Turkey’s move to designate the Turkish Cypriots’ unrecognized, main airport as a domestic flight route, effectively turning it into a Turkish one.
Many liberal Turkish Cypriots fear that both the financial deal and the airport designation are the clearest signals yet that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to eventually annex breakaway northern Cyprus.
“I will proceed with the complaint again with the United Nations relative to the airport which … in essence is being integrated and considered a Turkish airport,” Anastasiades said. “Secondly, (financial) protocol clearly demonstrates Ankara’s complete control of the Turkish Cypriots.
