Turkish Cypriots Rally Against Erdogan

Hundreds of Turkish Cypriots demonstrated in the northern part of the island of Cyprus in order to denounce the Turkish "intervention", days before the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus next Sunday.

Turkey is the only country which recognizes the entity established by the Turkish Cypriots in the northern part of the island.

The demonstrators, including a number of opposition leaders, chanted slogans against Ankara, including "No intervention, but free will!" And "Freedom for all!" And "In Cyprus, the decision is for the Cypriots!"

"We say to Turkey: You cannot rule northern Cyprus from Ankara!", said the spokesperson for the "Democracy and Will" movement, Gulsen Erchin, who organized the demonstration in the northern part of Nicosia, the capital city of Cyprus and the last pided capital in the world.

The demonstration was attended by the former leader of the Turkish Cypriots, Mustafa Akinci, who defeated in the "presidential" elections last month, Ersin Tatar, backed by Ankara.

The Turkish army has occupied third of northern Cyprus since 1974 when it invaded the north of the island in response to a military coup carried out by Greek nationalists aiming to annex this country to Greece.

The internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union (EU) since 2004, exercises its sovereignty over two-thirds of the island, which are located south of the UN-supervised buffer zone.

The last formal negotiations between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot parties were unsuccessful in 2017.

The demonstration, which took place, Tuesday, reflects the feelings of anger that were aroused by the Turkish Cypriot section of Ankara's public interference in their elections in support of Ersin Tatar.

The intervention reached its climax days before the first round of the elections, when Tatar from Ankara, with Erdogan sitting next to him, announced his intention to reopen the coastal resort of Varosha, which was occupied by the Turkish army following the pision of the island and closed it since then.