Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar was outraged on Sunday over a decision of streaming service Netflix to show the series ‘Famagusta’.
The series covers what happened in the summer of 1974 during the Turkish invasion and is a dramatic adaptation that follows a family also trying to find a child that went missing in their attempt to flee.
Tatar called on Netflix to think twice, saying that it distorts the facts of 1974, when as he said, “the Turkish army made a short peace operation on the island”.
“The Cyprus issue never started in 1974. The 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation was essentially a military intervention that saved the Turkish Cypriots from genocide,” he said, speaking to CNN Turk.
“This peace is known to Turks and Greeks all over the world that the bloodshed in Cyprus stopped with the 1974 Peace Operation. After 50 years, peace continues in this difficult region. The whole world knows that the Turks of Cyprus were massacred,” he added.
“We also have to do different series to explain our own issue. They [Greek Cypriots] do propaganda according to themselves. They can influence a part of the public. We have to show the truth of the issue with our own series,” he said.
The spokesman of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Omer Celik, also took a position on the Famagusta series.
“It is very worrying that a series that distorts the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation and makes propaganda for the Greek side will be broadcast on a cinema platform from September 20.
We cannot accept that the intervention that brought peace and established justice is being targeted by Greek propaganda.
The peace operation in Cyprus, the heroic Turkish soldier, peace and justice cannot be targeted through this series,” Omer Celik wrote on X.
