European Commission executive vice president for cohesion Raffaele Fito on Wednesday said the European Union “views with concern attempts to undermine freedom of expression and media pluralism in the Turkish Cypriot community”.

He released the statement in response to a question from Cypriot member of the European parliament Costas Mavrides regarding reports that Turkey had filed an extradition request against veteran Cypriot journalist Sener Levent.

Those reports appear nonetheless to not have been true, given that it had initially been claimed on July 9 that Levent had been given 10 days to present himself to the Ankara chief public prosecutor’s office lest he be extradited to Turkey, and that date expired without any extradition request having been filed thus far.

The summons had reportedly been related to the publication of a cartoon published in Levent’s newspaper, then called Afrika, on December 21, 2017, showing a Greek statue urinating on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As a result of the cartoon, Levent had been sentenced in absentia to a year in prison in Ankara for “insulting” Erdogan, before later being acquitted of related charges at a court in northern Nicosia.

On Wednesday, Fitto said that Turkey “is expected to adhere to its … commitments” as a candidate for European Union membership and a member of the Council of Europe.

“The targeting of media and journalists runs counter to these commitments,” he said, adding that “the EU has consistently underlined that Turkey urgently needs to reverse the negative trend of recent years and make tangible progress in upholding fundamental human rights”.

Last month, the Cyprus News Agency had reported that President Nikos Christodoulides had penned a letter to the EU’s leadership expressing “strong concern” about the situation regarding Levent.

It added that he had “underlined that Turkish Cypriots, as citizens of the Republic of Cyprus and of the European Union, are entitled to full protection of their fundamental rights” and “called on EU institutions to closely monitor the case”.

The north’s ‘foreign ministry’ had denied the reports, with Turkish Cypriot news agency Tak reporting that ‘ministry’ sources had said that reports of an extradition request “do not reflect the truth” and are “disinformation”.