A long night for Akinci

The leadership of the Turkish army in the north has told Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci that Friday’s attempted coup has not impacted northern Cyprus.

As the coup attempt in Turkey was unfolding late Friday and early Saturday, the Turkish Cypriot side was anxiously monitoring events, while it appears to have been a long night for Akinci who was up all night and in contact with army officers and Turkish officials to acquire more information.

According to Yeni Duzen, Akinci had convened a meeting with officials to monitor the situation in Turkey shortly after news that a coup attempt was underway late on Friday.

An official statement from the Turkish Cypriot leader’s office said that Akinci had two separate telephone conversations with the head of the ‘peace corps’ and the chief of the defence forces. Yeni Duzen reported that this occurred at around 3.00am on Saturday.

The two officers told Akinci that the chain of command in northern Cyprus was secure.

Around half an hour later, Akinci called the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to express his concerns over the attempted coup and the importance of a democratic Turkish state.

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.