TFR pays visit to the presidential palace
PRESIDENT Ersin Tatar has praised the work of The Foreign Residents (TFR) group. A delegation from the TFR visited Mr Tatar at the presidential palace in Lefkoşa earlier this week.
TFR chairman Horst Gutowski, deputy chairman Richard P. Bradley, information and internet officer Ralph Kratzer and Caroline Houghton, as well as presidential foreign press officer Kerem Haser, were present at the meeting, a written statement from Mr Tatar’s office said.
Mr Tatar said he was “delighted to welcome the TFR” to the Presidency, adding: “I do not see you as ‘foreign’; you are a part of the TRNC.”
He continued: “This country is your home, or your second home. You are living here and are also helping to voice the injustices faced by the Turkish Cypriot people in your respective countries, which we really appreciate and commend.”
Mr Tatar also thanked the TFR for “expressing support to me over our new vision for a two-State settlement in Cyprus, which gives us further strength”.
“Your lobbying at your respective countries and governments in relation to the situation in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the plight of the Turkish Cypriot people is very important,” he stressed.
Mr Gutowski said that the TFR was formed in 1998 and that he is a retired former consultant of the German Parliament.
The TFR provides different forms of services to its 800 members, who are made up of 30 different nationalities who are residents of the TRNC, he told the President.
Mr Gutowski explained that the TFR helped to repatriate “hundreds of expats back from the UK at the start of the pandemic”, and that they organise social events and charity work, and offer “advice and guidance to residents on issues such as citizenship, driving licences and residency, to name a few”.
Mr Bradley told Mr Tatar that he served in the British army in the 1960s and witnessed first-hand what had happened in Cyprus.
He said it was time for the international community to end the isolation of North Cyprus, adding that they “support the approach for a two-State settlement”.