The recent visit of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Cyprus has sparked outrage and disappointment within the Turkish Cypriot community. In this article, Embargoed! addresses the Prime Minister’s decision to meet exclusively with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides while refusing a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar. This move raises serious questions about the UK’s role as a Guarantor of the Cyprus Constitution and its commitment to impartiality in the ongoing Cyprus Problem.
The following open letter from Embargoed! explores the historical context, the ongoing injustices faced by Turkish Cypriots, and the implications of the UK’s actions on the island’s fragile path to resolution.
12th December 2024
“Dear Prime Minister,
It is with great shock and disappointment that the Turkish Cypriot community of the UK learned that the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has landed in Cyprus to meet with the leader of the Greek Cypriot community, Nikos Christodoulides, and yet has not seen fit to contact the Turkish Cypriot leader, Ersin Tatar. Furthermore, the Prime Minister refused Mr Tatar’s request for a meeting.
It is important to remind ourselves that Great Britain is a signatory to the 1959 London and Zurich Agreements on Cyprus and is a Guarantor for the Constitution of Cyprus (ratified on August 16, 1960) and the ‘state of affairs’ which these agreements created.
Great Britain has retained and makes great use of two sovereign areas on the island – as well as other intelligence sites – as part of those agreements. It appears that Great Britain is happy to reap the personal benefits of her continued presence on the island but takes none of the responsibility which comes with it.
The Republic of Cyprus came into being as a partnership state between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in which both communities are sovereign equals. That partnership was usurped by the Greek Cypriots in December 1963 and, somehow, sole Greek Cypriot representation of the island was legitimatised by the UN in March 1964, despite the 1960 agreement still being in place. There followed over 10 years of oppression of the Turkish Cypriot people until the Greece-led coup d’etat in July 1974 – which aimed at Enosis (the union of Cyprus with Greece). A move which provoked the intervention of Türkiye 5 days later. Since that time, both communities have remained physically and politically divided, waiting for a mutually agreeable solution.
Great Britain, along with the UN, insists that it supports a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation. Provided that is the wish of the two communities, we at Embargoed! would welcome such a change. However, this very solution was put to both communities in April 2004 (the UN Sponsored Annan Plan) and Great Britain well knows that a majority of Turkish Cypriots voted in favour, while an overwhelming number of Greek Cypriots rejected it. Perhaps the plan can be revised, or an alternative solution can be found. Embargoed! would welcome any democratically accepted agreement on the island. However, what Embargoed! and the Turkish Cypriot people wholeheartedly object to, is the current injustice. That being that, for over 60 years, while we wait for a mutually agreed solution Great Britain and the wider world treats one side, the Greek Cypriots, as the legitimate government of the island and subjects the other, the Turkish Cypriots, to political and economic isolation. Isolation which they promised – but wholly failed – to remove in return for a Turkish Cypriot ‘Yes’ in 2004.
For the UK Prime Minister to now visit the island and arrange to meet one party to the ‘Cyprus Problem’ while actively sidelining the other, is to take up sides in a manner which not only complicates the possibility of settlement but pushes it even further away. Furthermore, it serves to strengthen the view of a great many Turkish Cypriots that the UK cannot be trusted to approach the ‘Cyprus Problem’ with the impartiality that it requires and without firmly putting her own interests first.
Yours sincerely,
Embargoed!”
Embargoed! continues to stand for the equal rights of all Cypriots and calls for an end to the injustices faced by the Turkish Cypriot community. Prime Minister Starmer’s visit to Cyprus, while excluding Turkish Cypriot leadership, undermines the UK’s credibility as an impartial Guarantor power and complicates the path toward a peaceful, fair resolution.
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