‘Army did not use Turkish tyres’

THE DEFENCE ministry yesterday denied reports in the Turkish Cypriot press army was unwittingly being supplied with tyres from Turkey.

Turkish Cypriot press said that a Turkish businessman, Mustafa Hasanoglu who owns a tyre company named Arina told a Greek-Turkish business forum in Greece that he had indirectly been selling tyres to the ‘Greek Cypriot administration’ since 2005 by selling them through a Greek buyer who was selling them to Cyprus.

Hasanoglu was also quoted as saying that he had met the distributor from the Republic of Cyprus at a fair in Thessalonika in 2005. He reportedly said that the “Made in Turkey” stamp had caused some problems to begin with but these were solved.

European Party MP Rikkos Erotokritou expressed his disappointment yesterday, describing the situation as a “tragedy,” and wondering how it could be possible “to fight for survival” and project the problem of the Turkish invasion and occupation “when the country’s troops are equipped commercially with Turkish tyres.”

However a statement from the National Guard denied the reports after investigating the allegations.



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.