A TURKISH Cypriot soldier was killed and another seriously wounded yesterday when shots were fired at their post near the UN patrolled buffer zone that separates Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, officials said.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the shooting, but Turkish Cypriots and Turkey blamed Greek Cypriot soldiers and warned that the incident would heighten tension and hamper efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem.
There were also fears that the incident was related to the killing of two Greek Cypriot men during anti Turkish demonstrations on the demarcation line last month.
"We have learnt that there was an infiltration from the English base and this soldier was shot and I am afraid that we have findings the guns used are actually similar to the guns used by the Greek [Cypriot] police and the military," the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, said.
But the Cypriot government categorically denied any involvement of Greek Cypriot police or soldiers in the incident.
A Cypriot government spokesman, Mr Yiannakis Cassoulides, said National Guard officials examined all weapons held by soldiers in the area and found no indications of them being used.
He said police had no reports about shots from the "free areas to the Turkish occupied areas" and described the incident as "an act of Turkish provocation", implying that Turks had killed one of their own men.
The Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Rauf Denktash, said: "The blood of Turks has been drunk once again ... Have the (Orthodox) church and Greek leadership satisfied their thirst by this blood? Will they?"
The shooting occurred at about 4 a.m. at a Turkish Cypriot guard unit in Acheritou village, which Turks call Guvercinlik, on the edge of the British base of Dhekelia in south east Cyprus.