Denktash denies there was any row with his son

TURKISH Cypriot deputy ‘prime minister’ Serdar Denktash denied yesterday that his hospitalisation at the weekend was linked to an argument with his son over the imprisonment of his father-in-law.

That an argument took place between Denktash and his son Rauf at the Gelik restaurant in north Nicosia was widely reported in the press on both sides of the Green Line.
Denktash, however, told the Mail yesterday that there had been no argument and that his hospitalisation was due to “stress and tiredness”.

“They still have not been able to bring my blood pressure down,” he added.

Denktash’s claims of stress may be legitimate. Last week, President Tassos Papadopoulos put him in the spotlight when he revealed that he had held secret meetings with Denktash and the Turkish Cypriot communication and works ‘minister’ Omer Kalyoncu prior to the referendum on the Annan plan.

Denktash had consistently denied rumours that the meetings had taken place.

Politis wrote yesterday sources had reported an argument had broken out between the two Denktashes when the younger criticised his father for his failure to keep the youngster’s grandfather Salih Boyaci out of prison. Boyaci was jailed last year for embezzling funds from his own bank shortly before declaring it bankrupt.

“My father is deputy prime minister, and my grandfather is president, and my other grandfather is in jail,” the young Rauf Denktash was reported as saying.

During the fracas, a glass is said to have been broken, after which the senior Denktash fainted.

The proprietor of Gelik restaurant, where the Denktashes were eating at the time of the alleged incident, strongly denied that an argument had taken place.

“It’s all lies. Nothing happened at the restaurant and it wasn’t till they were outside that he [Denktash] became ill,” he told the Mail yesterday.

He admitted, however, that he had left the restaurant before the time of the alleged incident.