NICOSIA, Feb 20 (AFP) - The pro-settlement Turkish Cypriot prime minister Mehmet Ali Talat claimed victory in Sunday's general elections in the breakaway state in northern Cyprus but acknowledged he may not have enough parliamentary seats to come to power on his own.
"The partial results of the vote show that we have significantly increased our votes. This is an important success," Talat told reporters at the election press centre in a hotel in downtown Nicosia.
With nearly 90 percent of the 575 ballot boxes counted, Talat's Republican Turkish Party (CTP), which backed an abortive UN reunification plan for the Mediterranean island last year, had 44.2 percent of the votes cast, according electoral commission figures.
Turkey is the only state to recognise the breakaway state, which Turkish Cypriot leaders declared in 1983.
Talat had won the last elections in December 2003 with 35.2 percent of the vote after strongly backing a UN plan to reunify the island which was rejected by Greek Cypriots in an April 24 referendum.
Talat said if the voting trend continued, his party would get only 25 of the 50 seats in the assembly of the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which would not be enough for his party to come to power on its own.
"As you would agree, one cannot set up a single-party government with 25 seats. We will look for alternatives to enable us to have more parliamentary seats if that is the result of the elections," Talat said.
"We are on the verge of another coalition," he added.
02/20/2005 20:23 GMT - AFP