Rauf Denktaş dies aged 88

The founder and the first president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Rauf Raif Denktaş, has died, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

Denktaş was born in 1924 in Paphos. In 1957, Denktaş helped found the Turkish Resistance Organization, an organization that was formed to resist the Greek Cypriot militant group EOKA's struggle to proclaim Enosis (union with Greece) and worked for the partition of Cyprus.

After the ultranationalist Greek military coup in Cyprus on July 15th, 1974, Turkey intervened by landing troops on the northern coast of Cyprus. Although during the military operation the dictatorship fell and constitutional order was restored to Cyprus, Turkey continued to advance. The Turkish Army took control of 37 percent of the island by the time it completed its second advance on August 15th, 1974, and reached Famagusta.

Denktaş was subsequently elected president of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in 1976 and for a second term in 1981. He played a key role in the 1983 unilateral declaration of independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and was elected as the president of the TRNC in 1985, 1990, 1995, and 2000. The TRNC has never been recognized by the United Nations or any state other than Turkey.