London, Thanasis Gavos

Her Cyprus will visit at the beginning of the week o UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmerfor a meeting with the President of the Republics Nikos Christodoulidis and with British soldiers who will spend Christmas on the bases.

As it became known on Saturday night, Mr. Starmer will arrive in Cyprus on Monday night and will have his contacts on Tuesday.

It will be preceded on Monday by a visit and contacts by Sir Kiir United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabiain an effort to strengthen bilateral relations with the Gulf countries in terms of investment, defense and security.

The meeting with President Christodoulidis will discuss closer cooperation on common security challenges in the region, the statement said. The Cyprus issue and the deepening of bilateral relations in a range of sectors, from defense and security to trade, education and investment, are also expected to be on the agenda.

This is the first official visit by a British Prime Minister to Cyprus for a bilateral meeting with the Cypriot leader after that of Ted Heath 53 years ago (1971). In the interim (1993) o John Major he had been on the island for a Commonwealth meeting.

The newspaper Independentmeanwhile, reproduces a statement from the pseudo-state leader’s office Ersin Tatar expressing dissatisfaction that there was no prior notice of the Starmer visit. The statement calls on the British government, as a guarantor power, to deal “on equal terms” with the two sides in Cyprus, in view of an expanded meeting on the Cyprus issue under the UN Secretary General.

“We expect common sense to prevail and the Prime Minister of the UK to accept a meeting with President Ersin Tatar during his visit to the island,” the statement from the occupied territories concludes.

In the same publication of the Independent, moreover, leading members of the British opposition Conservatives call on Keir Starmer to clarify “that he has no intention of handing over” the British bases in Cyprus “as he did with the internationally shameful agreement on the Chagos Islands”, the sovereignty over of which he returns to Mauritius.

These statements of the shadow Deputy Minister of Defense Marc Francois and the shadow Foreign Minister Priti Patel follow the newspaper’s comment that in Cyprus there are “intensifying requests” for the return of the bases’ territories under Cypriot sovereignty.

The announcement of Starmer’s visit was warmly welcomed with a post on social media by National Cypriot Federation UK, speaking of a “major step forward” in bilateral relations.