Turkish Cypriots have begun voting in a tight run-off election to pick a new president, amid an escalation of tensions between Turkey and Greece over a territorial dispute in the Mediterranean Sea.
Incumbent president Mustafa Akinci and the current Prime Minister Ersin Tatar contest in the runoff vote.
The president supports the island’s reunification with the majority Greek-speaking EU member, the Republic of Cyprus in the south.
But the right-wing Turkish nationalist Tatar supports separate sovereign administrations on the island — a plan that Turkey has recently said is the only solution to the decades-long dispute.
