Türkiye’s Ministry of National Defence issued a commemorative message for the martyred Pilot Captain Cengiz Topel and those who were martyred in the Erenköy Resistance.

Türkiye’s Ministry of National Defence issued a commemorative message for Pilot Captain Cengiz Topel, whose plane was shot down by Greek Cypriots during a warning flight of the Turkish Air Force in Cyprus in 1964, and who parachuted down but was taken prisoner by Greek Cypriot soldiers and martyred.

In a message issued via the ministry’s social media account it wrote: “We commemorate with mercy, gratitude and respect Pilot Captain Cengiz Topel, our first air force martyr in the Republican era, whom was martyred 59 years ago, and our Turkish Cypriot martyrs who wrote an epic with the Erenköy Resistance.”