Ustel denies claims he took £300k bribe to build cable car in Kyrenia

The north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel on Thursday denied claims that he had taken a bribe of £300,000 to help facilitate the construction of a cable car in Kyrenia.

The claim had been made by social media journalist Serdinc Maypa, who released a sound recording of a telephone conversation in which an unnamed businessman made the accusations.

Assertions made during the recording point to the call having taken place between 2016 and 2018, when Ustel was a backbencher in the north’s legislature, with Huseyin Ozgurgun having been the ‘prime minister’ at the time.

The businessman was quoted as having asked for Ustel’s support to bring the matter to the attention of the north’s cabinet.

“Unal said the matter should first be brought to the cabinet’s agenda. That is why he said we needed to first bribe the transport minister,” he said, with that role at the time having been filled by Kemal Durust, who was arrested and bailed in 2024 on suspicion of document forgery.

Following the initial conversation with Ustel, the businessman said, he gave £200,000 to Durust, before giving Ustel his £300,000 in three instalments, with the last of those instalments having apparently been left at small supermarket near the Kyrenia land registry office.

In response, Ustel described the recording as “completely unfounded, baseless and fabricated”.

“This operation is not just a smear campaign, it is a planned political attack targeting me, my office, our government, our state and our democracy. I state clearly and unequivocally that the recording in question is not true,” he said.

He went on to say that “an attempt is being made to create a public perception and engage in political engineering through this fabricated and manipulated content,” before adding that “we will not remain silent in the face of such provocations, and we will do what the law requires”.

Additionally, he said the fact that Maypa released the recording on the day he was due to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara is “no coincidence”.

“The aim is to overshadow the strong and strategic relations we maintain with our motherland, Turkey, and to call into question the unwavering bond between our states. However, everyone must know that this nation neither surrendered to these dirty games yesterday, nor will it today,” he said.

He added, “I have never been, nor will I ever be part of a dirty deal, a dark relationship, or an undertaking based on personal gain at any point in my life”.

“I have always carried out my public duty within the framework of transparency, accountability and the rule of law,” he said, before announcing that criminal complaints would be filed against Maypa and “those who deliberately produced, disseminated, or contributed in any way”.

“The truth will be revealed in all its aspects as soon as possible. This attack is not only directed at me personally. This is an attempt to cast a shadow on the will of our nation, the reputation of our state, and the respectability of politics,” he said.

The idea of cable cars in Kyrenia was first publicly floated by Ustel’s ‘deputy prime minister’ Fikri Ataoglu in 2023, who had at the time included an item for their creation in the north’s 2024 ‘state’ budget.

It had been stated that one line would stretch between Kyrenia and the Bellapais monastery, and the other between Kyrenia and St Hilarion castle.

However, thus far, no cable car lines have yet been built.