“When an enemy forcibly takes down a country’s flag, this is not simply regarded as the removal of a piece of cloth from a flagpole,” Erhan Arikli, president of the Settlers’ Council, “minister of transportation,” and a fugitive wanted for the 1996 murder of Tassos Isaac, states in a post on social media.
As reported in the occupied territories, Mr. Arikli refers to and addresses those on the Turkish Cypriot side who, he writes, are questioning the attempt to lower the flag in Deryneia in 1996 (Editor’s note: he is referring to the assassination of Solomos Solomos) and asking whether “it was worth the trouble for a piece of cloth?”
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According to Erhan Arikli “these people are either under the control of the Greek Cypriot ‘5th column,’ which spreads black propaganda, or they are people who do not believe in the TRNC” —as reported in the pseudo-state—“do not trust Turkey and whose minds have been corrupted.”
He notes that the concept of the flag holds a very strong place, especially in Turkish history and culture, where banners and flags have been linked to state and military traditions since antiquity. The principle, he continues, that “the flag must not be lowered; the banner must not fall” was considered not only a military matter but also “a matter of honor for the state and the army.”
Source: CNA
