Turkish Cypriot leader-elect Tufan Erhurman on Tuesday said his “greatest pride is seeing our people smiling” in his first public statement since Sunday night.

“I am continuing to listen to you after the election, just as I did during the election period, and I hear phrases like ‘I slept so soundly for the first time in a long time’, ‘I cried with joy’, and ‘I do not remember being this happy in a long time’,” he began.

He added that such statements are “not coming from this party, that party, this segment of society, or that segments, but from all segments of our people”.

“The sentence which touched me the most was this: ‘my son told me on the phone that he had decided to live abroad, but today he changed his mind, and he is coming back to our country’,” he said.

Related Articles

He said that during the election campaign, “we said we would not give in to unhappiness and despair”, and that “my greatest pride is seeing our people smiling”.

“You overcame despair. You paved the way from unhappiness to happiness. You strengthened this people’s self-confidence. You made the decision. It is an honour and a strength to have walked alongside you and to know that we will work together, growing stronger every day for this people,” he said.

He added that “from now on, we will continue on our path with the same patience, composure, perseverance, and determination”.

This, he said, will be done “without being preoccupied with responding to any words” – a likely reference to Turkish nationalist political party MHP leader Devlet Bahceli’s repeated demands for northern Cyprus to join Turkeyin the aftermath of Erhurman’s landslide election victory.

Erhurman then added that he will “never fail to provide the necessary information within the framework of diplomacy and dialogue”.

“I am aware of my responsibility and I reiterate my promise: this people will once again be proud of itself, its country, and its institutions.”