A moderate won Turkish Cypriot presidential elections on Sunday, defeating a hardliner in a pivotal vote that could help revive stalled U.N. talks on reunifying divided Cyprus.<\/p>\n
Centre-left politician Tufan Erhuman sailed to victory in polls with 62.8% of the vote from just over 218,000 registered voters, defeating incumbent Ersin Tatar on a platform of reinvigorating talks with estranged Greek Cypriots on the future of Cyprus.<\/p>\n
Erhuman, a lawyer, has pledged to explore a federal solution \u2014 long supported by the United Nations \u2014 to end the island\u2019s nearly 50-year division. <\/p>\n
Tatar and Turkey, the only country which recognises breakaway North Cyprus, backed a two-state policy, which has been ruled out by Greek Cypriots. <\/p>\n
Cyprus was split in 1974 in a Turkish invasion triggered by a brief Greek-backed coup, which followed sporadic fighting after the breakdown of a power-sharing administration in 1963. North Cyprus was proclaimed in 1983 and peace talks have been stalled since 2017.<\/p>\n
Cypriot President and Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides congratulated Erhuman, saying he was committed to resuming peace talks.<\/p>\n
Tatar, who came to power in 2020, received 35.8% of the vote.<\/p>\n
The president of North Cyprus is mandated to represent the Turkish Cypriot community in negotiations with Greek Cypriots, who represent Cyprus in the European Union and have a say in Turkey’s aspirations to join the bloc.<\/p>\n
Mehmet Ali Talat, Turkish Cypriot leader from 2005 to 2010, said Ankara may adapt its approach to the idea of a two-state deal.<\/p>\n
“Can it change? I believe so. It depends on what Turkey can get out of a solution,” Talat told the Greek Cypriot Politis newspaper in an interview published on Sunday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A moderate won Turkish Cypriot presidential elections on Sunday, defeating a hardliner in a pivotal vote that could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-88492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}