Britain ends visa-free entry from the north

BRITAIN said yesterday it was withdrawing the right of people from the occupied north of Cyprus to enter the UK without a visa after almost 1,000 unfounded asylum claims over the past two years.

A junior minister at the Home Office, Mike O’Brien, said this would bring citizens of the Turkish Cypriot breakaway state into line with other holders of travel documents not issued by a recognised national authority.

Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974, is the only country to have accorded it diplomatic recognition.

“We have in the past accepted ‘TRNC’ (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) travel documents as proof of identity… We are today bringing the arrangements concerning holders of these documents into line with our normal practice,” O’Brien said in a written answer to a parliamentary question.

“There have been significant numbers of asylum claims by passengers travelling with this document which, when determined, have all been unfounded.”

Home Office officials said yesterday just over 450 applications for asylum were received from people from the occupied north of Cyprus last year and in 1996. None of the applicants had won permission to stay in Britain, they said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.