Supreme Court rejects request of Turkish Cypriots to get nationality

Turkish Cypriots married to settlers or children of settlers took the issue of not being granted Cypriot citizenship to the Supreme Court, but their applications were rejected.

The Court indicated that the Administrative Court is competent to hear their application because it was ruled that they are not stateless as they claim since they all have Turkish citizenship.

A total of 16 TCs have petitioned the Court for a writ of mandamus to “the Civil Registry and Migration Department and/or the Minister of the Interior and/or the Council of Ministers, ordering the establishment of a specific procedure with defined criteria and/or conditions to recognize stateless children by the International Statelessness Convention of 1954 and 1961 and/or by international law.”

As noted in the Supreme Court decision, the applicants acknowledge that the Republic of Cyprus has not signed the above International Conventions.

In addition, it is noted that the applicants, except one, have Turkish citizenship because one or both of their parents are Turkish citizens. Therefore, they are not stateless, as they claim.
Ín Cyprus