A Congressman’s Surprise Visit to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Sparks Anger

Updated at 11 a.m. EDTWhy would any congressman visit a rogue republic recognized by no nation apart from Turkey? That is the question ricocheting around the Mediterranean ahead of a highly unusual visit by an American lawmaker to the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, an enclave that Turkey carved out of the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus following an invasion of the strategic island in 1974. An anticipated visit by Congressman Pete Sessions, a Republican of Texas, has met with puzzlement at Washington and has caused Cyprus as well as Greece, already in a decades-long headlock with Turkey over the long simmering Cyprus problem, to come down with a case of the fantods.The danger of Mr. Sessions’s imminent visit is not really about trampling on Greek and Greek Cypriot political sensitivities — though there are signs that is already happening — but that a trip to the eastern Mediterranean equivalent of Russian-occupied Crimea sets a precedent that telegraphs a creeping normalization of the contested Turkish positions in a long festering frozen conflict. The Turkish Cypriot regime in northern Cyprus is backed solely by Ankara. Turkey stations more than 40,000 troops in the occupied northern third of Cyprus in contravention of the Treaty of Guarantee, which established the independence of Cyprus as a whole from Britain in 1960. A United Nations peacekeeping force monitors a buffer zone that spans the length of the island from east to west. The zone splits the capital of the Republic of Cyprus in two, making it the only remaining divided capital in Europe. Britain maintains two large sovereign military bases on the island.This week Mr. Sessions flew to Ankara on an official visit. Mr. Sessions’s visit to northern Cyprus is in an unofficial capacity, but there is no getting around that he is still a member of Congress — something not lost on the Cypriot government.“This is a condemnable visit,” the Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, told reporters this week in Cyprus. He added, “What I think is extremely important is that the American government and the American Embassy here are doing everything possible, in cooperation with us and our compatriots, to prevent such a visit from happening.”The island’s original international airport at Nicosia is in the buffer zone and has sat abandoned since 1974. The Department of State has emphasized that the visit by Mr. Sessions, should he elect to make it, is a private one and will not draw on the department’s resources. That raises the question of just what Mr. Sessions hopes to accomplish during what will likely be a short visit absent any public-facing events or fanfare. A spokesman for Mr. Sessions tells the Sun he cannot comment on the congressman’s travels while he is still overseas.According to a current state department travel advisory, “the northern part of Cyprus, administered by Turkish Cypriots, proclaimed itself the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ in 1983. The United States does not recognize the ‘TRNC,’ nor does any country other than Turkey.” Furthermore, the department cautions Americans to only enter and exit the Republic of Cyprus “at Larnaca and Paphos airports and at the seaports of Limassol, Larnaca, and Paphos.” That advisory is in place because the Republic of Cyprus considers entry via Ercan airport in the north to be illegal. But there is no other way to enter the “TRNC.” That raises the question of just what Mr. Sessions hopes to accomplish during what will likely be a short visit absent any public-facing events or fanfare. Visits by elected American officials overseas commonly invite commentary ahead of time. The Turkish press has sought to portray the congressman as a prominent member of the pro-Turkish lobby at Washington, but it is the more powerful and also more cohesive Greek lobby that is already up in arms.The big issue is that any visit by a high-ranking American to the Turkish-occupied north would bolster Turkey’s quiet but ongoing efforts to upgrade the status of its breakaway republic and create the optics of turning an unofficial dividing line into something approximating an international border. It was not immediately clear if Mr. Sessions was fully aware of the diplomatic repercussions that his visit might have, nor whether the relevant leg of his journey would be funded by the Turkish government. That would raise another set of issues. Mr. Sessions flew to Turkey in his capacity as a member of the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Turkey. Mr. Sessions reportedly met with an official from the rogue TRNC at Washington in September 2021, though it is not clear in what capacity. A solution to the division of Cyprus has long eluded both Washington and the United Nations, even as the island remains a vital listening post on the Middle East — Syria is just more than 300 miles away by sea. Last year Washington lifted a longstanding arms embargo on the Republic of Cyprus, and last month the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Menendez, extended the waiver that allows approved American munitions to be transferred to the Republic of Cyprus. Correction: Representative Pete Sessions was the only congressman who traveled to Ankara in his capacity as a member of the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Turkey. An earlier version, based on press reports, incorrectly said he was accompanied by another lawmaker.

A Congressman’s Surprise Visit to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Sparks Anger

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