Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Wednesday said the arrests and court cases regarding the development of Greek Cypriot-owned land in the north have “clearly become acts of terrorism”.

“The Greek Cypriot leadership’s use of the property issue as a tool for oppression reminds us of the bitter experiences we went through after 1963,” he said, referring to the intercommunal violence during the 1960s.

“When the partnership structure of the Republic of Cyprus was unilaterally changed in 1963, the Turkish Cypriots were excluded from the state’s administration by force of arms, were economically besieged, and were subjected to the seizure of their properties.”

“Tens of thousands of Turkish Cypriots were forcibly removed from their properties, villages were evacuated, and our people were imprisoned in ghettos,” he said.

“The Greek Cypriot administration’s attempt to oppress the Turkish Cypriot people by using the property issue is an example of the mentality of that period which is reflected today.”

He went on to say that in arresting people and opening court cases against them, the Republic is “ignoring decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights” (ECtHR), which had found that the Immovable Property Commission (IPC), an office set up by the Turkish Cypriots in 2005 to deal with the matter locally, was an “effective legal remedy”.

This, he said, shows that the Greek Cypriot side “aims to economically wear down the Turkish Cypriot people and to weaken them both in a legal sense and in a political sense”.

“The Greek Cypriot administration uses its own domestic legal system not to provide justice, but to usurp the rights of our people and to back the Turkish Cypriot people into a corner,” he said.

“The silence of the international community during this process harms the principle of the rule of law and weakens the search for justice,” he said.

“We will continue our fight against the Greek Cypriot administration’s lawless, oppressive, and intimidating policies. The will of the Turkish Cypriot people is not for sale.”

The number of cases regarding the alleged illegal development of Greek Cypriot property in the north is on the rise, with two Hungarian nationals having become the first to be sentenced to prison over the matter last week.

They had admitted to promoting and advertising the sale of houses near Kyrenia on the internet.

Meanwhile, the case of a German national who reportedly spoke about selling property in the north to an off-duty police officer during a flight to Larnaca is ongoing, and arrest warrants were issued on Tuesday for four Turkish nationals in connection with developments in the Famagusta district village of Lefkoniko.