Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s new official residence in Ayios Dhometios will be ready “by the end of the year”, Tatar said on Tuesday.
Speaking after the ceremonial opening of the north’s ‘parliament’, he said it is his aim for him to move out of his current official residence in Nicosia’s walled city and into the Ayios Dhometios complex before the 41st anniversary of the north’s unilateral declaration of independence on November 15.
He added that the new complex will have a 400-acre park, and that a new court building would also be built on the land next to where the new ‘parliament’ building is being constructed on the other side of the dual carriageway which links the northern sector of Ayios Dhometios to the rest of northern Nicosia.
He had announced the plans to build new court buildings in September, saying the north’s current court buildings are now “inadequate”.
All of the court buildings in the north except for those in Trikomo date back to the British colonial period, with northern Nicosia’s courthouse having first opened in 1904.
The north’s ‘parliament’ is currently housed in the former Dianellos cigarette factory in northern Nicosia’s Koskluciftlik neighbourhood.
In addition to the three branches of the north’s ‘government’ now being housed in Ayios Dhometios, a large mosque is being built adjacent to the road which links Ayios Dhometios’ northern sector to the crossing point.
At an earlier tour of the complex, Tatar had said the project will send “a great message to the world in terms of the Turkish Cypriots’ will, independence, and ability to govern themselves.”
Then-Turkish ambassador to the north Metin Feyzioglu had described the project as a “symbol of the strength of the TRNC’s democracy”, which would allow Turkish Cypriots to “be much more closely linked” with their leader
