Statue criticized because it does not resemble Turkish Cypriot politician

Statue criticized because it does not resemble Turkish Cypriot politician
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"Please replace those statues that glitter like gold, because they do not resemble Denktas, Ataturk or Dr. Kucuk," Rauf Denktas's son has said in protest.

A Turkish Cypriot politician's statue sparked reactions in Northern Cyprus because it did not resemble the man, Duvar's Nikolaos Stelya said on Friday.

The statue of Rauf Denktas, the founding president of Northern Cyprus, was recently installed in the garden of the parliament beside the statues of Turkish Republic's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Fazil Kucuk, another important figure in the political history of Turkish Cypriots.

The statue's poor artistic quality drew reactions from many people, including Rauf Denktas's son Serdar Denktas, who complained that a Cypriot sculpture had made a statue of his father and it was handed over to the parliament six months earlier, but instead of installing it, this one, "which nobody would recognize as the statue of Rauf Denktas if his name had not been inscribed," was installed in the parliament's garden.

He added:

"Please replace those statues that glitter like gold, because they do not resemble Denktas, Ataturk or Dr. Kucuk. This is neither respectful nor faithful."

The leader of the main opposition Republican Turkish Party (CTP) Tufan Erhurman also expressed criticism, and said there was also a spelling error in the inscription.

Northern Cyprus was founded on the northern part of the island after Turkey's occupation in July 1974, and it is a political entity that is recognized solely by Ankara.

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Rauf Denktas had served as the president of the de-facto state between 1975 and 2005. He died in 2012.