‘Denktash nominated for Nobel Peace Prize’

FORMER Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, who died last month, has reportedly been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, according to the daily Turkish Cypriot newspaper Kibris.

According to the newspaper, members of the Parliamentary Friends of Northern Cyprus, a British all-party group campaigning for the formal recognition of the occupied areas, backed the Denktash nomination.

Members include Lord Maginnis of Drumglass and Lord Northwood, while it is reported that several lords, barons and former ministers and MPs supported the nomination. 

Winners are announced in October, after almost a year-long selection procedure. 

The validity of the reports is highly questionable, as information on nominations is kept secret by the Nobel Peace Prize committee for 50 years. 

Rather interestingly, no Noble prize can be awarded posthumously. 

According to Nobel Prize rules, “a Prize cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the announcement of the Nobel Prize.”

Rauf Denktash died on January 13 this year. It is not clear on what grounds he would qualify for a Nobel peace prize, given that he dedicated his long political career to partitioning Cyprus and to making partition permanent. 

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.