Under the title: “We are in the position to offer services to the south”, Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis (10.08.11) reports that the “ministry of transportation and communication” issued a written statement yesterday criticizing the Greek Cypriots on the issue of air traffic control and further makes a call to the Greek Cypriots to cooperate, expressing its willingness to provide services to the Republic of Cyprus.

As the paper writes, the “ministry of transportation and communication” accused the “Greek Cypriot administration” as it called the Republic of Cyprus for trying to hide its ineffectiveness on the issue of the air traffic control by accusing and slandering the “TRNC”. Nevertheless, the statement underlines that, the “TRNC” since 1977 provides effective and secure air traffic services to the airplanes which land and depart from the ports of the “TRNC advisory airspace”.

The “ministry” underlines also in the statement that the “Ercan air traffic control centre” will continue providing secure and high quality services with the latest technology devices it has. It then refers to the implementation of a system called SMART (Air Traffic Control System) which was implemented in 2009, supporting that the “north Cyprus airspace” has reached the highest level of technical and technological security.

The “ministry” in its statement stresses also that the “TRNC” is in the position to provide services at almost any level to the “south Cyprus Airspace” if it is asked.

The “ministry”, through its written statement, expressed also the readiness of so-called minister Ersan Saner to meet with the Greek Cypriot Transportation Minister in order to explain to him in detail the SMART system.

The written statement refers then to the news report published on August 7 by Associated Press from Nicosia that “the existence of two separate traffic control centres in Cyprus is an element that could create dangers” and the “ministry” claims that the “TRNC air traffic control centre” from the day of its establishment expressed its readiness to cooperate with the south neighbors in every field. However, if there is no communication among the two air traffic control centres, the “Greek Cypriot administration” is the only responsible for this, concludes the statement by the “ministry”.