Cyprus has welcomed the resignation of the UK’s trade envoy to Turkey, Afzal Khan, saying it sends “a resounding message” amid widespread criticism of the Labour MP’s recent visit to the island’s breakaway Turkish-occupied north.
Khan had defended his trip on 8 August in a letter to the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, claiming it was conducted “in a personal capacity during the parliamentary recess”.
But acknowledging the furore the visit had caused, the MP for Manchester Rusholme, who faced calls to resign, also said he felt it was “best to stand down at this time so not to distract from the hard work the government is doing to secure the best possible trade deals for this country”.
On Saturday, within hours of the British government confirming the resignation, the Cypriot foreign ministry called the decision an “important development” that showed there could be zero tolerance for an entity recognised by no country except Turkey.
In a statement it said: “The recent illegal visit of British MP Afzal Khan to the areas of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkiye, as well as his meeting with [the territory’s leader] Mr Ersin Tatar were unacceptable and provocative actions.”
The episode had, the foreign ministry added, sent a resounding message “that there is no room for tolerance”.
“It is clear … there must, and may be, political consequences regarding [the north] … especially for those who foster, assist or tolerate it.”
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when a coup aimed at union with Greece, engineered by the hard-right junta then in power in Athens, prompted Ankara to launch a military operation in the name of protecting the island nation’s Turkish Cypriot minority.
After years of inter-communal violence following independence from Britain, the two-phase invasion resulted in Turkish troops seizing 37% of Cyprus’s territory and triggering mass displacement, with the majority Greek Cypriot population moving south of a UN-patrolled ceasefire line and Turkish Cypriots fleeing in the opposite direction.
In 1983, the breakaway north unilaterally declared independence – prompting Britain, a guarantor power, to immediately convene a meeting of the UN security council condemning the declaration as “legally invalid”. Successive governments in London and elsewhere have refused to engage in diplomatic relations with the entity since.
Despite relentless efforts by Turkish Cypriot authorities to win recognition, only the international republic of Cyprus in the Greek-speaking south is acknowledged. When Keir Starmer last year made the first official visit to the island by a British prime minister in more than 50 years, Starmer refused to meet Tatar, instead holding talks with the Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides.
Turkey, to this day, maintains about 35,000 troops in the north.
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On Saturday, Tatar, a hardline nationalist who advocates a two-state solution to resolving the Cyprus problem, decried the pressure put on Khan, saying the British MP had visited the self-proclaimed mini-state at his own invitation. “The fact that an elected MP was forced to resign from his position as the UK’s trade envoy to Turkey simply for engaging with the Turkish Cypriot people is a warning sign for all those who believe in democracy and equality,” said Tatar.
Diaspora groups in the UK, where large numbers of Greek and Turkish Cypriots settled after 1974, said Khan’s visit had been especially “politically insensitive” because it coincided with the 51st anniversary of the invasion, the second phase of which began in mid-August 1974, as well as continuing UN efforts to restart talks to reunite the island.
“Afzal Khan was right to resign as the UK trade envoy to Turkey following his deeply inappropriate and unacceptable visit to the occupied north of Cyprus,” said Christos Karaolis, who heads the National Federation of Cypriots in Britain.
“His actions compromised the UK’s longstanding foreign policy on Cyprus, contravened international law and disrespected the lived experiences of our UK Cypriot community, many of whom are refugees or descendants of those forcibly displaced by Turkey’s 1974 invasion. We now look ahead to continued collaboration with HM government in support of a free and reunited Cyprus.”