Nicosia, Cyprus: Rauf Denktash, the former Turkish Cypriot leader whose determined pursuit of a separate state for his people and strong opposition to the divided island's re-unification defined a political career spanning six decades, has died. He was 87.
Dr Charles Canver, who treated Denktash for his heart condition, said he died late on Friday of multiple organ failure at Near East University Hospital in the Turkish Cypriot north of Nicosia. He had been in poor health since suffering a stroke last May. Denktash was hospitalised last week with diarrhoea and dehydration. Canver said Denktash's weakened heart contributed to his organ failure.
Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu said: "We as Turkish Cypriots won't forget [Denktash's] selfless struggle for our freedom."
Denktash's son, Serdar, said his father was no longer with his people, but that "he is now among the fallen heroes and soldiers".
Denktash's death comes in the middle of yet another diplomatic drive to re-unify Cyprus, which has been split along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkey invaded the island in the aftermath of a short-lived coup by supporters of union with Greece.
Denktash had maintained the Turkish Cypriots needed a separate state to preserve peace and avoid a return to what he called massacres of Turkish Cypriots at the hands of the majority Greek Cypriots.
His dedication to the partitionist cause made him a hero to many Turkish Cypriots, just as Greek Cypriots saw him as their arch-villain — the standard-bearer of all they opposed.
That image began to be moulded in the late 1950s when Denktash helped found the Turkish Resistance Organisation or TMT as a counterweight to EOKA, a Greek Cypriot group waging a guerrilla campaign against the island's then colonial ruler Britain to achieve union with Greece.
Cynical adversary
"Greek Cypriots saw him as the cynical adversary," said Cyprus University History Professor Petros Papapolyviou. "He was seen as the man who put the interests of Turkey above those of Cyprus."
Born in Paphos, Cyprus, on January 24, 1924, Denktash rose to prominence as a leading figure in the Turkish Cypriot community during the tumultuous period in the 1960s and 1970s when intercommunal conflict claimed hundreds of Cypriot lives.
He blocked efforts to reunite the island, claiming that unification would open the way for Greek Cypriot domination and raise the threat of renewed violence.
After the Turkish invasion, he was chosen as leader of what was then the self-declared Cyprus Turkish Federated State.
