North Cyprus government accuses south Cyprus of creating tension for propaganda in the buffer zone

The TRNC ‘foreign ministry’ on Wednesday accused the Greek Cypriot side of deliberately planning provocations in the buffer zone at Deneia and using the village as a propaganda tool.

According to the report by Cyprus Mail on Wednesday, it was referring to an issue that happened on Saturday last week when a group of Greek Cypriot farmers were stopped by Turkish soldiers from cultivating land they lease in the buffer zone from the UN, an incident that repeated itself on Tuesday resulting in the farmers again leaving the area.

The UN peacekeeping force Unficyp, who are in control of the buffer zone have been mediating between both sides, and said on Tuesday they were concerned such incidents would undermine peace and stability and upset the status quo, which is their responsibility to maintain.

But while the south Cyprus foreign ministry has reported the incident to the UN, the Turkish Cypriot ‘foreign ministry’ issued a statement accusing the Greek Cypriots of “planned provocations to create tensions”.

It called on the Greek Cypriot side to stop using the farmers and Deneia village as propaganda tools. 

According to their information 11 Greek Cypriot farmers entered the buffer zone with six tractors and had gone right up to the “TRNC borders” thus “violating the buffer zone”.

The Greek Cypriot group was removed with difficulty from the region by a UN police patrol after the [Turkish security forces, informed the UN officials about the situation.

CyprusMail