‘NO LAW AGAINST DIRECT FLIGHTS’

 EXCLUSIVE 

By ELTAN HALİL

ESTABLISHING direct flights between the UK and North Cyprus would not be against the law, top British politician Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said.

Speaking exclusively to Cyprus Today newspaper at his hotel during a recent three-day visit to the TRNC, his first ever to the island of Cyprus, Sir Iain said the UK government’s refusal to allow direct flights is down to political rather than legal matters.

The former leader of the Conservative Party said that he responded to a letter criticising his stance from a UK-based Greek Cypriot lobby group, which had claimed that direct flights to Ercan airport would be against the law, by stating: “Well, it’s not actually against the law. What law? I wrote back to them and asked them ‘what law are you talking about?’ Because I don’t know of any law that says you can’t fly to somewhere.”

Stressing that direct flights is a “humanitarian issue”, the ex-Cabinet minister said he chose to visit North Cyprus – his first overseas trip since his re-election as an MP in the July 4 UK general election – to experience first-hand the difficulties passengers encounter by having to change flights in Türkiye.

“I’m here because I was asked to be here by a number of my constituents who are British citizens, but they’re of Turkish Cypriot origin,” the veteran MP for Chingford and Woodford Green in north-east London stated.

“They’ve all complained to me that . . . the difficulty they have is they can’t fly direct to [North] Cyprus, to come into this area, and they always find it difficult when they fly into the Greek Cypriot side of Cyprus because they often face delays and difficulties”

Sir Iain, who missed his connecting flight in Türkiye due to delays departing from London Stansted, which meant he did not arrive at his hotel until 3am after arriving at Ercan airport, said he and his aides accompanying him had the “proper experience” of travelling to the TRNC.

“If you’ve got family, children, it’s pretty, pretty difficult. So I don’t understand why Turkey can fly direct, but the UK won’t fly direct.

“Obviously, I do understand that, because of course the other side of the line doesn’t want that to happen because they think that comes to statehood, but that’s not true.”

 

DIRECT FLIGHTS ‘NOT A SIGNAL OF STATEHOOD’

 

Referring to a letter sent to former Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron in May calling for direct flights, which Sir Iain and more than 50 other British politicians signed, he added: “It was all saying it really isn’t correct that this would be a signal of statehood. It’s not a signal of statehood because there are plenty of countries, for example Taiwan, [that have] direct flights. Even though the Chinese hate it, we [the UK] still do it.

“So I find it peculiar that the British government hasn’t tried to at least make the case. It’s almost like they don’t care really on this and worry about other things.

“My problem is there are a lot of British citizens living in London who can’t get home here to see their families without a huge struggle the whole time, so I think that would be fairly reasonable and it could be explained quite happily [that] it has no bearing on what any eventual settlement [in Cyprus] might or might not be, but it would certainly be very helpful to have [direct flights].

“So my main reason was to come and experience the process, talk to various people here of various seniority and then try to persuade the powers that be that this is one thing they could look into which would make life a lot easier.”

Asked why he thinks the British government does not seem to care about the issue, Sir Iain replied: “Well, I’m not privy to their thinking, but it does strike me that they probably think they don’t want to reopen this at this stage because they’ve got maybe issues over the sovereign bases [in Cyprus] maybe concerns that the European Union, which has recognised the government of Cyprus as the government down there, they might have difficulties with that, so I suspect, what they’re saying is, ‘is this a big enough issue to fight for or not?’

“My answer is it’s not that big actually, but it’s important to the people that want to come out here.

“You have British citizens all over the world and the government is meant to go and at least make their case, and I would like them to do that.”

 

BORIS JOHNSON MEETING

 

After leaving government in 2016 following six years as the Work and Pensions Secretary, Sir Iain took up the issue of direct flights to North Cyprus on behalf of his constituents.

He used his clout within the Conservative Party to meet with transport and foreign secretaries, including Boris Johnson when he was the UK’s Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018, to press the British government on direct flights.

Sir Iain said Johnson said he would “certainly look at it” but “they didn’t get anywhere”, adding that the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was “very intractable”.

He continued: “I’ve met with the Transport Secretary once or twice and our transport minister . . . at the end of last year.

“We didn’t get anywhere on that, but the same issues, where they came up with lots of security issues; it’s nothing to do with security.

“It’s all to do with some other greater political issue, and I think sometimes these are the ways of breaking down those political issues so that you can get a proper longer term deal over what happens in Cyprus.”

Asked if he would consider working with the newly elected Labour MP Nesil Çalışkan, who is of Turkish Cypriot origin and who previously told this newspaper she supports direct flights between the UK and North Cyprus, Sir Iain said that many issues in the House of Commons are taken on by cross-party teams.

He cited examples of working with the Labour Party on tackling subjects such as modern slavery, online gambling and “big issues” relating to China.

“I work a lot with the Labour Party, so I don’t have any problem with that and I would certainly work with anybody now who wants to pursue this case,” he pointed out.

In response to another question, Sir Iain said he does not believe that the change in government in the UK from the Conservative Party to Labour will make it more difficult for him to gain access to ministers.

“Labour knows me, I know all these people, I was here long before most of them were here themselves,” he said.

“And I know all the major Labour politicians, [former prime ministers Tony] Blair, [Gordon] Brown onwards, I’m on speaking terms with them all, so if I asked to see a minister, I would expect them to see me. I’m a Privy Counsellor, they can’t say no to that.”

 

‘NOT FOR ME’ TO SPEAK ABOUT CYPRUS PROBLEM

 

Asked if he has a view on the wider Cyprus problem, Sir Iain replied: “I don’t really speak about it here because for me to speak about it now would mean that I wouldn’t talk about the flights and I’m going to keep focused on the flights and I’m not directly involved.

“So I always think it’s a mistake to flaunt your opinions about something that you’re not really here to do. So my opinion is very simple. I would love things to be sorted out here so that people could move freely between both borders in a way that they can’t do at the moment and get flights in and out, I mean, who doesn’t want to do that?

“There are some roadblocks on the road and I hope they’re removed at some point.”

Vowing to continue to keep direct flights on the agenda of the British government, Sir Iain continued: “I will continue to talk to ministers about it. . . There are a number of countries that aren’t considered states in their own right that have flights directly to them, even though they aren’t self-governing or whatever. So if that’s what the reference is, it’s not true.

“The rest of the world now doesn’t recognise Taiwan as a self-governing state, but they deal with it like one, and the flights go directly, a lot of flights. . . There’s no other reason why it’s not happening, but that people on the other side of the buffer zone don’t want it to happen.”

Direct flights between the UK and North Cyprus “could actually benefit some of the Greek Cypriots” who live closer to Ercan than other airports on the island, Sir Iain added.

“So my sense is that if people are sensible about these things, it could be resolved. It shouldn’t be in there as a block on further discussions. . . What does it mean if they have direct flights? It means . . . they don’t have any delays, they can bring people here and take people back, the same as in every other country.

“There are plenty of places that aren’t recognised in the UN as individual separate countries, but they still have direct flights.”

 

PRESIDENT TATAR ‘VERY SENSIBLE’

 

On President Ersin Tatar, who Sir Iain has met both in the UK and now in the TRNC, the MP said he has “good” relations with him.

“I think he’s a very sensible man,” he stated. “I think he tries hard to make the case. I think sometimes that the story of what’s happened here is important to be told, but that’s not my job to do. But I think it’s important to get the balanced view of what’s been going on.”

Sharing his impressions of North Cyprus and its people, Sir Iain concluded the interview by saying: “Everyone is very welcoming. Everyone’s very polite. They get on with their work, their lives. I think they all wish there’d be some kind of settlement so they could expand the way they look at their lives here. . . They’re very polite and, it seems to me, at times, very happy people.

“At the end of the day it’s always better, as Churchill said, [to have] jaw, jaw, not war, war.”

 

UK GOVERNMENT POSITION

 

Cyprus Today asked the British High Commission in South Cyprus for the new UK Labour government’s position on direct flights.

A spokesman said the UK “does not permit direct flights between the UK and the north of Cyprus”.

He stated that under the Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as the “Chicago Convention”, only the “Republic of Cyprus may designate an airport for international flights”.

“It has not done so for Ercan airport. As such, it is not possible to fly directly between the UK and the north of Cyprus. This position was confirmed by a [UK] High Court ruling in 2009 and endorsed by the Court of Appeal in 2010,” the spokesman added.

Asked to confirm which parts of the Chicago Convention the British government’s stance on direct flights between the UK and the TRNC are based on, the spokesman said: “The UK High Court ruling of 2009 (Kıbrıs Türk Hava Yolları v Secretary of State for Transport, Case No: CO/3512/2007) and subsequent endorsement by the Court of Appeal in 2010 outline in detail the legal basis for the application of the Chicago Convention in the context of Cyprus.”

The High Commission spokesman also ruled out the possibility of a return to the practice of UK-bound passengers departing from Ercan airport being allowed to wait on the plane in Türkiye before continuing their journey, stating that “to do so would be contrary to the UK’s international legal obligations under the Chicago Convention”.

With regards to the resolution of the Cyprus problem, the spokesman said the UK “remains committed to supporting the UN efforts to reach a Cyprus settlement”. 

 

• This article originally appeared in the print version of Cyprus Today on July 27, 2024