Northern Cyprus Lottery Image Blunder Commemorates ‘Wrong’ Side in Battle
Lottery tickets are causation a political stink inwards the de facto res publica of Northern Cyprus. That’s after a mess designed to memorialize Turkish Cypriot opposition inadvertently depicted opposition Hellenic Cyprian fighters rejoicing with a captured Turkish flag.
It was, inward the words of Northern Republic of Cyprus President Ersin Tatar, “a huge and unforgiveable” blunder.
The Turkish Cypriot Lottery Administration is working to callback thousands of unsold tickets that had been intentional to celebrate the 58th anniversary of the Battle of Tylliria.
Known to Greeks as the Battle of Kokkina, the 1964 conflict saw a chemical group of outnumbered Turkish Cypriot fighters give out. The battle was against Hellenic Cypriote armed forces and members of the Hellenic language Nationalist paramilitary force system EOKA.
The besieged fighters were eventually relieved by the Turkish Air Force, which bombed Hellene Cypriote positions that had encircled Turkish Cyprian enclaves.
A decennary later, Republic of Turkey invaded the compass north of Cyprus and partitioned the island, a segmentation that continues to this day.
‘Great Mistake’
The image printed on the tickets was intended to depict the besieged fighters, known as the Erenköy Mujahideen, who are heroes in the eyes of Turkish Cypriots.
But the figures in the range of a function shown holding a Turkish signal flag are inwards fact EOKA fighters, celebrating after capturing the flag from a Turkish Cypriote fastness quatern months before the Battle of Tylliria.
It is a great misapprehension to employ the photographs taken past Greek-Cypriot soldiers and EOKA members as Erenköy Mujahideen inward the lottery tickets printed by the State Lottery Administration to mark the splendiferous Erenköy Resistance,” complained Tatar.
“This is ne'er acceptable,” he continued. “No matter what, you cannot chagrin our mujahideen, the resplendent Erenköy resistance, our subject struggle, and our saintly martyrs. No ane has the right.”
Investigation Launched
Prime Minister Ünal Üstel said that an investigation had been launched into the incident and those responsible for(p) would be fired.
In an functionary statement, Osman Uzun, head up of the drawing administration, asked for forgiveness.
We excuse to our people and our heroes of the Şanlı Erenköy Resistance for the image used as a resultant of an inadvertent mistake,” he said.
But Turkish Cypriot newspaper Avrupa stoked the flames by accusing the lottery potency of doctoring the photo to deliberately fog the image’s pilot location and context.
The draw, which was scheduled to occupy shoes on the August 8 day of remembrance of the battle, has been postponed for decade days. The jackpot has been raised from 500,000 to 1 million Turkish Italian lira (US$56,000).