President Ersin Tatar has reacted to the Greek Cypriot administration and the Greek Cypriot church for using the photograph of Nevcihan Oluşum, a Turkish Cypriot woman crying for her husband who was killed by Greek Cypriots, taken in 1964, to depict the plight of Greek Cypriots.

In a written statement issued on Thursday, Tatar said that the Greek Cypriot administration could not hide the massacres it had carried out against Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus.

Then a young mother, Oluşum’s grief-stricken face was captured by British war photographer Sir Don McCullin on March 20 1964, moments after she learned that her husband had been killed by Greek Cypriots as he tried to defend their home in Gaziveren.

Her distraught 9-year-old son Kubilay is shown extending his hand to his mother to help console her.

The photograph was recently used for a poster to promote an event in South Cyprus to be held on December 2 organised by the Constantinos and Mağusa Metropolis and Youth Organisation titled, “Not to forget and remember.”

President Ersin Tatar in his written statement reminded that five Turkish Cypriots had been killed in the attack on the village on March 20, 1964.

He said that Oluşum’s photograph later was reproduced as a Greek Cypriot woman whose husband had been killed in 1974, the truth only to be revealed by the Times newspaper.

“However the Greek Cypriot side which has not ceased its efforts to deceive the international public is continuing its lies and propaganda. The use of this photograph in a poster to promote an event organised by the Constantinos and Mağusa Metropolis and Greek Cypriot Youth Organisation titled, “Not to forget and remember” and her depiction as a Greek Cypriot victim is a direct insult and act of disrespect against our women and mothers who grieve for their martyred loved ones,” he said.

Tatar added that it was wrong to carry out propaganda over the pain and tears of others.

“The atrocities carried out in Cyprus cannot be concealed this way. My call to the Greek Cypriot administration and Church is for them to abandon these lies and not to exploit peoples’ grief for political purposes,” he said.