Breakaway Turkish Cypriot state needs recognition, leader says

Turkish-Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar poses behind his desk at his office in the northern part of Cyprus' divided capital Nicosia on July 11, 2024. (AFP)
Turkish-Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar poses behind his desk at his office in the northern part of Cyprus' divided capital Nicosia on July 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 13 July 2024
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Breakaway Turkish Cypriot state needs recognition, leader says

Breakaway Turkish Cypriot state needs recognition, leader says
  • The invasion’s aftermath effectively divided the island along ethnic lines, with some 170,000 Greek Cypriots fleeing the north to be replaced by some 40,000 Turkish Cypriots displaced from the government-held south

NICOSIA: The breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in north Cyprus hopes to end its international isolation, its leader Ersin Tatar told AFP in an interview, as the Mediterranean island marks fives decades of division.
“Every day, we are working for recognition,” said the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which Turkish Cypriot leaders declared in 1983 but which is recognized only by Ankara.
“Turkish Cypriots have been (put) under a lot of disadvantages — embargoes, isolation,” Tatar said in the interview conducted on Thursday.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of Turkiye’s invasion of the north, five days after a coup orchestrated by the junta then in power in Athens sought to unite the whole island with Greece.
The invasion’s aftermath effectively divided the island along ethnic lines, with some 170,000 Greek Cypriots fleeing the north to be replaced by some 40,000 Turkish Cypriots displaced from the government-held south.
But international recognition has always eluded the Turkish Cypriots, with knock-on effects on the northern economy.
All flights to northern Cyprus have to make at least a stopover in Turkiye, hampering the development of large-scale tourism.
The rejection of a UN peace plan by Greek Cypriot voters in a 2004 referendum meant Cyprus entered the European Union that year still a divided island, with Turkish Cypriots denied the full benefits of membership.
“I would very much hope to see a resolution from the United Nations Security Council saying that we do recognize the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus,” Tatar said.
“Greek Cypriots are obviously having a bigger part of the cake. Tourism is prospering, their economy is prospering,” he added.
UN-backed efforts to reunify the island as a bizonal, bicommunal federation have been at a standstill since the last round of talks collapsed in 2017.
The Turkish Cypriot leadership says that with the UN-backed reunification talks dead, a two-state solution is the only forward.
Greek Cypriot leaders say they remain committed to the UN-backed process.

The United Nations, whose peacekeepers patrol a buffer zone behind the former front line between the two sides, is pressing for talks to resume between the leaders of the two communities.
“All I want is concerted efforts to find a practical, fair, just and sustainable settlement. But on an equal basis, a sovereign equal basis,” said Tatar.
For Tatar, “1974 was a turning point for Turkish Cypriots, a new hope,” said the leader, who was a 13-year-old pupil at the English School in Nicosia at the time and on holiday in London when he heard the news.
Citing violence and discrimination against the minority community in the decade leading up to the invasion, he insisted Turkish troops landed to “protect the Turkish Cypriots.”
A controversial treaty between Britain, Greece and Turkiye that accompanied the island’s independence in 1960 gave the three powers the right to intervene to guarantee the island’s constitution.
The treaty also outlawed partition and the union of any part of the island with Greece or Turkiye.
“This is why we call it Turkish intervention as a result of the right given to Turkiye by the 1960 agreement,” Tatar said.
He said the Turkish troop contingent in northern Cyprus — around 40,000 soldiers, according to the United Nations — was a “deterrent force” that had “ensured that we had peace on the island.”
Despite the many challenges, “what we have achieved is basically to develop our state from nothing to a consolidated state with all the functions and faculties that you would have in any modern state,” Tatar said.
 

 


Lebanon holds local polls in first vote since Israel-Hezbollah war

Lebanon holds local polls in first vote since Israel-Hezbollah war
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Lebanon holds local polls in first vote since Israel-Hezbollah war

Lebanon holds local polls in first vote since Israel-Hezbollah war

BEIRUT: Lebanon on Sunday began the first stage of long-delayed municipal elections, the first vote since a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah and after a new national government was formed.
Polls opened at 7:00 am (0400 GMT) for voters in the Mount Lebanon district, a heavily populated area with mixed political and religious affiliations that includes Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold that was heavily damaged by Israeli strikes.
“We have come to exercise our right and have our voices heard,” said Hashem Shamas, 39, a Hezbollah supporter, after voting in south Beirut’s Shiyah neighborhood.
According to the interior ministry, 9,321 candidates including 1,179 women are running in the Mount Lebanon district.
Lebanon is supposed to hold municipal elections every six years, but cash-strapped authorities last held a local ballot in 2016.
President Joseph Aoun emphasized the vote’s importance to “give confidence to the people and internationally that Lebanon is rebuilding its institutions and is back on the right track.”
Aoun was elected in January and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam formed a government the following month, ending a more than two-year vacuum as Lebanon’s balance of power shifted following the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The new authorities have promised reforms in order to gain the trust of the international community, as well as unlock billions in bail-out funds amid a five-year economic crisis. They have also vowed a state monopoly on bearing arms.
Hezbollah was left badly weakened in more than a year of hostilities with Israel, with a slew of commanders including the group’s longtime chief, Hassan Nasrallah, killed and its strongholds pummelled in the south and east and in south Beirut.
Israel has continued to strike targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire and still has troops in five areas it considers “strategic.”
In April 2024, the municipal polls were postponed amid the hostilities, which escalated in September into a major Israeli bombing campaign and ground incursion before the ceasefire about two months later.
Aoun urged voters not to let sectarian, “partisan or financial factors” impact their vote.
Religious and political affiliations are usually key electoral considerations in multi-confessional Lebanon, where power is shared along sectarian lines.
Municipal ballots however provide a greater margin for local community dynamics to play a role.
Polls are set to close at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday.
Areas of northern Lebanon will vote on May 11, with Beirut and the country’s eastern Bekaa Valley area set to go to the polls on May 18, while voters in the heavily damaged south will cast ballots on May 24.


Lebanese army says Hamas handed over suspect in missile launches toward Israel

Lebanese army says Hamas handed over suspect in missile launches toward Israel
Updated 9 min 53 sec ago
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Lebanese army says Hamas handed over suspect in missile launches toward Israel

Lebanese army says Hamas handed over suspect in missile launches toward Israel

CAIRO: The Lebanese army said on Sunday that Hamas handed over a suspect involved in launching missiles towards Israel in March, days after Lebanon warned the Palestinian group not to conduct operations that compromise Lebanese security or sovereignty.


UAE to lift Lebanon travel ban on May 7

UAE to lift Lebanon travel ban on May 7
Updated 04 May 2025
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UAE to lift Lebanon travel ban on May 7

UAE to lift Lebanon travel ban on May 7
  • UAE will lift a ban for its citizens traveling to Lebanon as of May 7, 2025

DUBAI: The UAE Foreign Ministry announced Sunday that it will lift a ban on its citizens traveling to Lebanon as of May 7, 2025, following a visit by the Lebanese head of state last week, according to WAM News Agency. 

The decision comes after a joint statement issued on Thursday, announcing that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed agreed to implement measures to facilitate travel and improve movement between the two countries.

The UAE banned its citizens from traveling to Lebanon in 2021. Lebanese citizens were not banned from traveling to the UAE. 


Paramilitaries launch first attack on Port Sudan: army

Paramilitaries launch first attack on Port Sudan: army
Updated 04 May 2025
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Paramilitaries launch first attack on Port Sudan: army

Paramilitaries launch first attack on Port Sudan: army
  • The paramilitaries have expanded the scope and frequency of their drone attacks on army-held areas since losing control of areas including most of the capital Khartoum in March
  • UN agencies have also moved their offices and staff to Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the war.

PORT SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitaries on Sunday struck Port Sudan, the army said, in the first attack on the seat of the army-aligned government in the country’s two-year war.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023, have increased their use of drones since losing territory including much of the capital Khartoum in March.
Army spokesman Nabil Abdullah said in a statement that the RSF “targeted Osman Digna Air Base, a goods warehouse and some civilian facilities in the city of Port Sudan with suicide drones.”
He reported no casualties but “limited damage” in the city, on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.
AFP images showed smoke billowing from the area of the airport in Port Sudan, about 650 kilometers (400 miles) from the nearest known RSF positions on the outskirts of Khartoum.
In the eastern border town of Kassala, some 500 kilometers south of Port Sudan, near Eritrea, witnesses said three drones struck the airport on Sunday for the second day in a row.
An AFP correspondent in Port Sudan said his home, about 20 kilometers from the airport, was shaking as explosions were heard early Sunday.
A passenger told AFP from the airport that “we were on the way to the plane when we were quickly evacuated and taken out of the terminal.”
On social media, users shared videos which AFP was not able to immediately verify showing a large explosion followed by a cloud of smoke rising from the blast site.
Flights to and from Port Sudan, the country’s main port of entry since the start of the war, were suspended until further notice, a government source told AFP.
The rare attacks on the airports in Port Sudan and Kassala, both far from areas that have seen much of the fighting since April 2023, come as the RSF has expanded the scope and frequency of its drone attacks.
The paramilitaries led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo have been battling the regular army, headed by Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, in a devastating war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.
In the early days of the war, the government relocated from Khartoum to Port Sudan, which until Sunday’s attack had been spared the violence.
UN agencies have also moved their offices and staff to Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the war.
The conflict has left Sudan, Africa’s third largest country, effectively divided.
The army controls the center, east and north, while the RSF has conquered nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur and parts of the south.
Lacking the army’s fighter jets, the RSF has relied on drones, including makeshift ones, for air power.


Missile launched from Yemen lands near Israel’s main airport

Missile launched from Yemen lands near Israel’s main airport
Updated 04 May 2025
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Missile launched from Yemen lands near Israel’s main airport

Missile launched from Yemen lands near Israel’s main airport
  • Yemen's Houthis claim missile attack on Israel's main airport
  • Sirens were activated in Tel Aviv and other areas in the country

TEL AVIV: A missile landed inside the perimeter of Israel’s main airport on Sunday, wounding six people, halting flights and gouging a wide crater, in an attack claimed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants.
The Israeli military said “several attempts were made to intercept” the missile that was launched from Yemen, a rare Houthi attack that penetrated Israel’s air defenses.
A video issued by Israel’s police force showed officers standing on the edge of a deep crater with the control tower visible in the distance behind them. No damage was reported to airport buildings or runways.
The police reported a “missile impact” at Ben Gurion airport, Israel’s main international gateway.
An AFP photographer said the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport’s largest, with the crater less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) away from the closest tarmac.
“You can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen meters (yards) wide and several dozen meters deep,” central Israel’s police chief, Yair Hezroni, said in the video shared by the force.
It was not immediately clear whether the impact was caused by the Yemeni missile or by an interceptor.
The attack was claimed by Yemen’s Houthis, who say they act in support for Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza.
“The missile force of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion airport” with a “hypersonic ballistic missile,” the Houthis said in a statement, referring to their own forces.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated at least six people with light to moderate injuries.
An AFP journalist inside the airport at the time of the attack said he heard a “loud bang” at around 9:35 am (0635 GMT), adding the “reverberation was very strong.”
“Security staff immediately asked hundreds of passengers to take shelter, some in bunkers,” the AFP journalist said.
“Many passengers are now waiting for their flights to take off, and others are trying to find alternative flights.”
An incoming Air India flight was diverted to Abu Dhabi, an airport official told AFP.
A passenger said the attack, which came shortly after air raid sirens sounded across parts of the country, caused panic.
“It is crazy to say but since October 7 we are used to this,” said the passenger, who did not want to be named, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
“A missile might come at any time and life stops for some time. Today at the airport there was panic and even I was scared, because the blast was big.”

Israel’s airport authority said that “departures and arrivals have resumed” at Ben Gurion, a short while after they had been interrupted due to the missile fire.
The airport “is open and operational,” the aviation authority said in a statement.
Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened a forceful response, saying: “Anyone who hits us, we will hit them seven times stronger.”

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas praised the missile attack on Israel's airport that was claimed by the Houthis.

“Yemen... escalates its attacks on the heart of the illegitimate Zionist entity, surpassing the most advanced defense systems in the world and striking its targets with precision,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.