LONDON, UK. March 7th, 2025 – Minister of State at the UK Foreign Office, Stephen Doughty MP is due to visit the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) today (Friday, 7th March) to meet with President Ersin Tatar in Lefkoşa, TRNC.
The meeting takes place ahead of crunch United Nations talks about the future of the island of Cyprus – to be held in Geneva, Switzerland on the 17th and 18th March. As the UN Security Council ‘penholder’ on Cyprus, the UK will play a vital role which brings together representatives from TRNC, Republic of Cyprus, Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom.
This will be the TRNC’s first face-to-face contact with the new Labour government and follows Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s pre-Christmas meeting with the Southern Republic of Cyprus President, Nikos Christodoulides. Labour’s initial refusal to meet President Tatar drew criticism in Northern Cyprus and Türkiye.
The move to meet President Tatar is seen by analysts as a sign of the Starmer government’s desire to repair relations with Ankara in the midst of its efforts to build a ‘coalition of the willing’.
Doughty’s visit will be the first UK governmental visit to Northern Cyprus since Conservative Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab visited in February 2021.
Ahead of the UK minister’s visit, the TRNC Foreign Minister, Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, has spent the last week in London meeting with senior parliamentarians across the party spectrum. Minister Tahsin also spoke to a number of different UK media outlets, including appearing live on Iain Dale’s LBC show.
The UK based Freedom and Fairness for Northern Cyprus campaign hopes that the Presidential meeting with the UK minister could signal a new stance from the British government – a UN guarantor power to Cyprus – one that recognises the reality of two states on the island of Cyprus.
ENDS