The north’s supreme administrative court on Friday ruled to cancel the tender which had been put out for the construction of a new marina worth €300 million in the Kyrenia district town of Lapithos, citing environmental concerns.
It was intended that the marina would be built at Sardunya bay, in the northwest of Lapithos, near the village of Vasilia.
After three years of legal wrangling between local authorities, which had supported the plans, and an environmental group by the name of the Green Action movement, the court found that the environmental impact assessment carried out before the project was put out to tender was incomplete, and therefore invalid.
In addition, the court ruled that the Turkish Cypriot Lapithos, Karavas, and Myrtou municipality, commonly known as the ‘Lac municipality’, would have to pay the Green Action movement’s legal expenses.
Speaking after the case’s conclusion, Green Action movement secretary-general Feriha Tel stressed that her movement is not against all investment, but that their position is that investments and developments be carried out sustainably.
“Of course, investments will be made. Of course, our aim is for our country to improve and for economic development to be achieved in every region. However, while doing this, public interest, environmental protection, and carrying out works which are not against the law should be the basis,” she said.
She added that she remains open to cooperation with the Lac municipality to find a way forward which is both environmentally sustainable and legal, saying, “if there is a request from the municipality … we are ready to sit around the same table and carry out projects which are environmentally friendly, publicly beneficial, and not against the law”.
Lac mayor Firat Ataser was defiant after the decision, promising to restart the tender.
“We will start he process in a short time, make up for the time we lost, and bring this marina and hotel to our region … We will continue to work in the same way to ensure the continuation of our project. There was no loser or winner today, the only thing lost here is time,” he said.
He did, however, say he could be open to “call the parties to our side in a conciliatory manner”.
Court proceedings regarding the marina had begun in early 2022, with environmentalists having opposed the development and argued from the outset that the environmental impact assessment was incomplete and invalid.
An interim order was handed down on April 13, 2022, with construction having been halted since then.
It had also been alleged that Ataser’s predecessor in Lapithos Mustafa Aktug, who was only mayor in Lapithos, having served prior to the north’s municipal reforms which were enacted in 2022 and reduced its number of municipalities, had met investors one-on-one before the tender had been put out.
Earlier, the project had been the source of a scandal which saw the north’s current ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel sacked from his role as ‘tourism minister’ by Ersin Tatar, the ‘prime minister’ of the day, who has since been elected as Turkish Cypriot leader.
The scandal surrounded the arrival of a private jet at the north’s Ercan (Tymbou) airport in June 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, after which all passengers on board were allowed to exit the airport through a gate used by fire engines near the airport’s old terminal without undergoing Covid-19 tests or passing through immigration.
At the time, the Turkish Cypriot authorities mandated that all arrivals from abroad spend 14 days in hotel quarantine.
It later transpired that on board the jet was Neset Kockar, a Turkish multi-millionaire investor who headed Anex Tour, one of the companies involved in the Lapithos marina project.
Kockar was joined on the aircraft by three Russian women and five other people, all of whom were reportedly housed at a large casino and hotel in Karavas during their stay on the island.
Ustel held a press conference after the incident made headlines, insisting that “the people who were in the delegation that visited did not pose any danger to the public”, and that everything was done in line with the provisions of the law.
Tatar, however, was less than convinced, sacking Ustel before telling the north’s ‘parliament’ that he was “saddened” by the incident and that he was not aware of the group’s exact plans beforehand.
However, he did somewhat defend Ustel, criticising opposition ‘MPs’ for “questioning me like I am in court” and later quipping that “a cabinet decision is not required for every time a plane lands”.
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