A British member of parliament from the country’s ruling Labour Party has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Girne American University in Kyrenia, the university announced on Sunday.
Afzal Khan, who represents the Manchester Rusholme constituency in the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, was awarded an honorary doctorate in international relations and public service.
The university explained that the decision to hand Khan an honorary doctorate had been made in July, with it initially having been planned that he would be presented with the doctorate during a visit to Cyprus in August, but that “the political objections of the Greek Cypriot administration in southern Cyprus” stood in the way of those plans.
Instead, it said, university staff travelled to Manchester, with the university’s founding rector and chairman of its board of governors Serhat Akpinar, who is also an ‘MP’ in the north for ruling coalition party the DP, presenting Khan with the doctorate.
The ceremony was attended by Turkey’s consul-general in Manchester Fusun Aramaz, as well as other dignitaries, with the university stating that Khan is “highly respected in the international community for his exemplary services in the fields of law, local administration, human rights, international diplomacy, and parliamentary politics”.
It added that he is also respected on account of his “humanitarian stance, particularly regarding social peace, interfaith dialogue, and the Palestinian cause”.
Akpinar, meanwhile, said the university has “gone beyond honouring a statesman and has honoured justice, human dignity, and universal conscience”.
“Khan is an exceptional figure who has not limited his life to politics but has dedicated himself to humanity. Justice, conscience, and responsibility are not merely concepts in his life, they are a way of life,” he said.
Khan’s visit to Cyprus in August had generated a storm of controversy and eventually saw him resign from the position he held as the UK’s trade envoy to Turkey shortly after he left the island.
He had flown to the north via Ercan (Tymbou) airport and met the Turkish Cypriot leader of the day Ersin Tatar at his official residence in the northern sector of the western Nicosia suburb of Ayios Dhometios, before being photographed with gifts given to him by Tatar bearing the ‘TRNC’s’ flag.
Following the meeting, Tatar’s office quoted Khan as having said that he has “friends of Cypriot origin living in Manchester”, who had encouraged him to visit the island.
“That is why I am happy to be here,” he added.
Shortly after his return to the UK, he submitted his resignation from the role of trade envoy to the country’s Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, saying that he felt it was “best to stand down at this time so not to distract from the hard work the government is doing to secure the best possible trade deals for this country”.
He later told the BBC that the visit had been made “in a personal capacity” and that it had “no relation” with his role as trade envoy.
Following his resignation, Cypriot government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis refuted claims attributed to Tatar that the Greek Cypriot side had acted in a “tyrannical” manner in working to ensure that Khan resign from the post.
“In no case can the defence of international law, of international legitimacy, be considered by anyone to be a tyrannical act. It is exactly the opposite. It is the defence of sovereign rights, it is the restoration of law, and it is the defence of international legitimacy,” he said.
He added that “this is what the Republic of Cyprus is doing through the diplomatic steps we have taken since the first moment of this illegal and unacceptable action by [Khan]”.
Tatar had described the “pressure” placed on Khan to resign as “a new reflection of the primitive and domineering Greek Cypriot mentality”.
“The fact that an elected MP was forced to resign from his position as the UK’s trade envoy to Turkey simply for engaging with the Turkish Cypriot people is a lesson for all who believe in democracy and equality,” he added, before going on to decry “the Greek Cypriot leadership’s fascist and anti-democratic behaviour.”
