TRNC is “Loophole” for Illegal Immigration - New York Times

A New York Times story published on 28 January 2020 calls the TRNC a “loophole” for illegal immigration into Europe. 

Most migrants arrive by land from Northern Cyprus, the article stated. 

The simplest way is to think of the north of Cyprus is as the world’s biggest airport transit lounge, James Ker-Lindsay, a senior research fellow at the London School of Economics who specialises in the politics of southeastern Europe, told the NYT.

You’ve landed on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, but it’s not until you’ve gone through the border check at the green line — which isn’t a border itself — that you’re officially in the Republic of Cyprus, he said.

According to the story, more asylum seekers are doing just that, presenting Cyprus, population of 850,000, with a budding migration crisis that much of the rest of the European Union has left behind.

The number of asylum seekers in Cyprus was five times higher in 2019 than it was four years ago, unlike in the rest of the bloc, where those numbers have tapered off markedly since 2015.

The island’s budding migration crisis is a consequence of its fraught history and continuing division, which has defeated attempts at mediation for decades, the article points  out.

Source: Cyprus Today Online