The leader of occupied northern Cyprus announced on Friday that the ghost town of Varosha will soon revive.

Reuters reported that the Prime Minister of the Turkish occupied north, Ersin Tatar, said the city, which was cordoned off with barbed wire after the Turkish invasion in 1974, will be able to receive visitors again. “Varos will definitely be open. Everything’s changed, the new page is upside down. (North) Cyprus will be stronger, opening Varosha to tourism,” Reuters quotes him as saying.

The exact dates of the opening of the city are not yet known, but Tatar, in an interview with news agency, said that the work on preparing the city for visitors “is almost complete.

“Varosha is on the territory of TRNC,” he said, referring to northern Cyprus. “No one can take it away from us. We are successfully continuing our journey. The inventory is almost complete and we are in the opening phase.

Since the invasion, the city of Varosha has been a neutral zone, closed to the public. Abandoned buildings, dilapidated churches, empty apartment buildings and hotels now look more like the apocalypse than the fashionable resort it was before 1974.