New limitations on visiting Northern Cyprus?
This Hebrew article states that a ban on non-EU citizens visiting TRNC (Northern Cyprus) was supposed to take effect on October 3rd 2017, and is postponed by a few weeks. The article seems to me rather confused.
The article claims that the new policy is:
- Any non-EU citizen entering TRNC risks an arrest and a 10 year ban from Cyprus.
- Non-EU citizens may enter Cyprus only by the Repblic of Cyprus air and sea ports.
- Anyone who would enter TRNC, by air or sea, and would cross to ROC, would get a black stamp on his passport, a 10 year ban and possibly a fine or prison punishment.
- When the new rules take effect, Israeli citizens will not be able to cross to the Turkish side.
- This is related to a decision from 7 months ago, regarding the use of hotels in TRNC which were taken from their Greek owners in 1974. There's a list of 100 such hotels.
Some of these claims seem to be nothing new (ROC requires that you enter by its ports only), some seem wrong (no crossing from ROC to TRNC).
Question - what new limitations, if any, are there for visiting TRNC?
Update
The Times of Israel reports on November 22nd 2017 that non-EU citizens (Israelis) were refused entry to ROC, on their way to TRNC:
A group of some 40 Israelis were expelled from Cyprus on Tuesday after they were stopped on their way to hotels in the northern section of the island, which has been occupied by Turkey since 1974.
...
The Cypriot embassy told Hadashot (formerly Channel 2) news, “Any tourist who arrives in Cyprus with the aim of vacationing in the territories occupied by Turkey is breaking Cypriot law and risks being returned to his country of departure.”
Here we're not talking about entering TRNC directly, but entering ROC with intention to enter TRNC by land, which seems to have been perfectly OK before.
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