The occupied north’s self-styled “prime minister” Ünal Üstel announced he has dismissed “Minister of Public Works and Transport” Erhan Arıklı, Kıbrıs Postası has reported. Üstel said the move was intended to allow the investigation into the fatal maritime disaster off Kyrenia to continue without the slightest suspicion or doubt.
The disaster occurred when a vessel sank off Kyrenia on Sunday, August 30, leaving 20 people missing.
Search and rescue teams have since recovered the body of one of the missing, believed from initial assessment to be a man aged around 50; the body was taken to the Dr Burhan Nalbantoglu State Hospital in Nicosia for identification. 19 people are still missing.
A second, more advanced search and rescue vessel capable of operating at greater depths has since joined the operation, though the effort is complicated by the roughly 550-metre depth at the site. Üstel had said the search would continue around the clock, and that no further bodies had been located at that stage.
Arıklı, according to Cyprus Police records, has an arrest warrant against him since 1996 over his alleged connection to the killing of Tassos Isaac, an unarmed Greek Cypriot protester who took part in a civilian demonstration in the United Nations Buffer Zone that August.
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