Turkish Cypriots head to polls Sunday in local elections

LEFKOSA, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Voters in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) will go to the polls Sunday in local elections.

The voters will choose 18 mayors, 220 city council members, 240 headmen and 960 council of elders, according to the Supreme Election Board (YSK).

Turkish Cypriots will decide on 67 candidates, six of them women, for the mayor posts.

The coalition partners in the TRNC, the National Unity Party, the Democrat Party and the Rebirth Party will participate in the elections as a full alliance.

Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the UN to achieve a comprehensive settlement.

Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.

In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aiming at Greece's annexation led to Turkiye's military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence.

The TRNC was founded in 1983. It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Turkiye, Greece and the UK.

The Greek Cypriot administration entered the EU in 2004, the same year Greek Cypriots thwarted the UN's Annan plan to end the dispute.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar