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Rauf Denktashâ€™s funeral takes place â€“ PHOTOSESSION

Rauf Denktashâ€™s funeral takes place â€“ <font color=red>PHOTOSESSION </font>

17 January 2012 15:46 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA. Founder and first president of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Rauf Denktash, who died on January 13, has been buried today in Lefkosha (Nicosia). APA reports that Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Speaker of the Parliament Cemil Ã‡iÃ§ek, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Deputy Prime Ministers Bekir Bozdag and BeÅŸir Atalay, Minister of Finance Mehmet ÅžimÅŸek, Chief of General Staff of Turkish Armed Forces Necdet Ozel, CHP leader Kemal KiliÃ§daroglu, CHP former leader Deniz Baykal, MHP leader Devlet BahÃ§eli, MPs, President of Northern Cyprus DerviÅŸ Eroglu as well as the other governmental representatives, Denktashâ€™s family members, relatives as well as ordinary citizens participated in the funeral.

Foreign guests also attended the ceremony. Chairman of the Azerbaijanâ€™s State Committee for Work with Diaspora Nazim Ibrahimov and some parliamentarians were among them. Qatarâ€™s State Minister for Foreign Affairs Abdullah Al-Jabir, Deputy Education Minister of Afghanistan Mohammad Ratman, Macedonian State Minister Nadi Nezir, Pakistani Ambassador to Turkey Harun Shaukat, Head of the Crimean Tatarsâ€™ National Assembly, member of the Ukrainian parliament Mustafa Jamiloglu, parliamentarians from Bulgaria and Kosovo also attended the funerals.

After the funerals in the Presidential Palace, Denktashâ€™s body was taken to the Selimiyye Mosque, where funeral salat was performed. Denktash was buried in the Republican Park.

Rauf Denktash was born in 1924. He got secondary education in Turkey, and graduated as a lawyer in Britain. He worked as a prosecutor in Cyprus. He founded Turkish Resistance Organization in 1958 to struggle against the Greek Cypriotsâ€™ enosis (unification of Cyprus with Greece) attempts and against the Greek EOKA terrorist organization. He was the vice president of the united Cyprus in 1970-1973. He was elected as the president of Turkish Federal State of Cyprus which was declared in 1975 and took this office until 2005.