Azeri flight ‘fiasco’

TURKISH Cypriot papers said yesterday the much-trumpeted direct flight to Baku in Azerbaijan was a hyped affair laid on by the Denktash family.

Daily Halkin Sesi said the first direct flight by Cyprus Turkish Airlines to a country other than Turkey had been a “a fiasco”.

The newspaper quotes the ‘Foreign Minister’ Serdar Denktas as saying the visit was the result of an invitation addressed to the Denktash family. It said the Turkish Cypriot delegation was met with a simple ceremony and that all the passengers, including the VIPs, were taken from the plane to the VIP room squeezed in a bus.
The paper said that no meetings with Azeri officials would be held during the visit, despite statements in the north that the delegation would meet the State Minister of Azerbaijan and the Foreign Minister.

Other newspapers in the north said, however, that official contacts would be taking place, and that Turkish Cypriot businessmen would be signing co-operation protocols with Azeri businessmen.

Yeni Duzen criticised the visit saying “The Denktash family’s trip to Azerbaijan cost $62,000”.

Former Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash was among those who participated in the delegation and entered Azerbaijan using ‘TRNC’ passports. The paper also writes that Denktash’ wife Aydin, along with NTV said the Republican Turkish Party (RTP) of Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat was opposed to the portrayal of the visit as “the first direct flight” from the north. RTP officials said Denktash was going to Azerbaijan on a special flight, and that the announcement that this would be the first flight to a country outside Turkey was not going to help lift the isolation of Turkish Cypriots.

According to Azeri press reports the country’s Foreign Minister called for the non-politicisation of the visit. “I consider that there is no necessity to politicise this issue. We have been informed about the arrival of officials of Northern Cyprus to Baku. They have arrived for participation in the business forum. This visit is related to business”, the minister told journalists.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.