By a Staff Reporter
BY THE end of last week, around 20,000 Turkish Cypriots had visited District Offices around the island to apply for passports, identity cards and birth certificates, Interior Minister Andreas Christou said yesterday.
Speaking after a meeting with the mayors of nine municipalities in the occupied north, Christou confirmed that some Turkish Cypriots also wanted to apply to change their names.
“It is the right of every Turkish Cypriot citizen of the Republic, as it is the right of every Greek Cypriot citizen, to decide to change his surname; and there are thousands of Greek Cypriots who also want to alter their surnames,” he said. “In other words, whatever is allowed to Greek Cypriots is also allowed to Turkish Cypriots.”
He acknowledged that two Turkish Cypriots had complained that the authorities in the south had refused to allow them to apply for a name change, perhaps out of ignorance.
Regarding schools for Turkish Cypriots, the minister said that due to low numbers, it had so far not been possible to open a Turkish Cypriot school in the south. Instead, Christou said, Turkish Cypriots tended to send their children to English-speaking schools, just as the Armenian, Maronite and Catholic communities did.
Christou added that a Turkish Cypriot school in Limassol was, however, being prepared for use.
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.
