Millett ends term as High Commissioner

PETER Millett embarked on a round of farewell meetings yesterday, starting with House President Marios Garoyian and Anastassiades to say goodbye after almost five years representing Britain in the former colony. He is due to leave the island on Sunday.

The British diplomat was due to leave months ago but made numerous requests to extend his stay here, citing important developments in the progression of the peace talks in Cyprus.

He will be replaced as High Commissioner by John Christopher William (Matthew) Kidd, whose last posting was at NATO as the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Headquarters Reform. Apart from London, Kidd has also served at the European Commission in Brussels and as a diplomat in Germany, Ethiopia and France.

Just two years after joining the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Kidd was sent to Nicosia in 1980, where he served three years as Third and later Second Secretary at the High Commission.

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.