PHOTOGRAPHS of Miss Star Cyprus 2000 and Miss Turkey together are likely to cause quite a stir when a Greek magazine goes on sale this week, Politis reported yesterday.
Stella Demetriou and Neshan Mulazim posed together for the magazine Max and feature on the June edition cover. But this is no ordinary photo shoot, as the pictures of the two girls leave very little to the imagination.
Accompanying the spread of pictures is an interview with the former Larnaca beauty queen, in which she also reveals her views on Greco-Turkish relations.
Demetriou said this was the first time she and her friend Mulazim had attempted this type of modelling.
“This is the first time in either’s career that we have done this kind of erotic photo shoot,” she said. She said she knew the pictures would definitely be talked about in Cyprus, Turkey and Greece.
Politis reported that the magazine has been in circulation in Athens since Thursday and is already being widely discussed. Max is now expected to hit news-stands throughout the island by the middle of this week.
What is most likely to cause uproar is not so much the pictures of the two bare-breasted young women in each others’ arms, but an interview with Demetriou on Greco-Turkish friendship.
Demetriou said that one reason they had decided to go ahead with the photo shoot was to send the message that younger Cypriot and Turkish generations can become firm friends.
“Friendship can exist between young people from the two countries” because both countries have a lot of common elements, she said, citing the dance tsifteteli and certain foods and words.
Friends or not, when asked how she saw a solution to the Cyprus problem Demetriou displayed a strong sense of patriotism, saying: “To get the rest of our island back. What else?”
She told the Max reporter that the word ‘Turkey’ conjured up feelings of Den Xehno (I won’t forget) in Cypriot people.
“What do you expect?” she said. “It’s not so easy for someone to just forget what happened in 1974.”
Even though Demetriou says she is unable to forget, she confidently waits for the day when both sides finally stop pitting against each other so everyone can move freely all over the island once more.
“I hope for it,” she is quoted as saying of that day. “That way my friend Neshan and I can go to the northern part of the island on holiday.”
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.
