NICOSIA, Oct 17 (AFP) - Thousands of Turkish Cypriot public  
workers went on strike Tuesday to protest against a package of 
austerity measures prepared by Turkey, whose financial help is 
essential for the breakaway Turkish republic in Cyprus. 
   Some 38,000 public employees joined the one-day strike, which  
followed a decision by the government last week to go ahead with the 
tight package to revive the ailing Turkish Cypriot economy, 
according to the 15 trade unions and non-governmental groups that 
organized the strike. 
   The strikers represented 95 percent of the public employees who  
are members of those unions. 
   Turkey is the only country to recognize the breakaway Turkish  
Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Each year Ankara allocates 
hundreds of millions of dollars to the TRNC, whose economy has been 
crippled by a long-standing international embargo. 
   The strike, which was scheduled to end at 1400 GMT, disrupted  
public transport, airplane flights and ferry services. Doctors in 
public hospitals were available only for urgent cases, while police 
had to step up security around prisons, where guards also went on 
strike. 
   In the meantime, nearly 15,000 people held a demonstration in  
the Turkish sector of Nicosia, shouting slogans against Ankara's 
intervention and calling for the resignation of the government and 
TRNC President Rauf Denktash. 
   Security forces had taken heavy security measures at the square  
where the crowds gathered, but did not intervene. 
   The TRNC government agreed to implement the austerity package  
after it failed to pay public employees' salaries earlier this month 
when Ankara refused to send funds to the TRNC unless the package was 
put into force. 
   The package includes tax hikes, an end to the recruitment of new  
public workers and the abolition of periodic, inflation-linked 
salary hikes. 
   The strike came two months after thousands of Turkish Cypriot  
victims of a banking scandal broke into parliament and briefly took 
TRNC Prime Minister Dervis Eroglu hostage to protest at the 
government's failure to pay them previously promised compensation. 
   The Turkish and Turkish Cypriot press have accused Eroglu's  
government of corruption and of misusing Ankara's funds for its own 
political ends. 
   Cyprus has been divided into a Turkish north and Greek south  
since 1974, when Turkey occupied the northern third in response to 
an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia seeking to unite the island 
with Greece. 
  	   	

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Ankara (dpa) - Around 5,000 people gathered in the main square of
Nicosia on Tuesday to protest against a package of economic measures 
which the ``Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus'' hopes will combat an
economic crisis, the Anadolu news agency reported.

The package envisages a vast range of new taxes and cuts in
benefits.

The ``Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus'' is recognised only by
Ankara.

The protest, one of the biggest in northern Cyprus, came the same
day as a general strike when workers, farmers, shopkeepers and public
servants vented their anger at increases in value-added tax, increases
in diesel prices, the introduction of taxes on pensions and a freeze
on government hiring.

The economic crisis began when five private banks collapsed earlier
in the year and thousands of Cypriot Turks lost their life savings.