Ali Murat Basceri on Friday formally recommenced his duties as Turkey’s ambassador in the north, submitting his credentials to Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar at Tatar’s official residence in northern Nicosia after a three-year absence from the role.

There, he said he will do his best to “further strengthen the exceptional relations between the two countries”, while Tatar said Basceri’s return will “give strength to the struggle for an agreement based on sovereign equality” to solve the Cyprus problem.

Basceri then visited the statue of the Republic of Turkey’s founding president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk at Nicosia’s old town’s Kyrenia gate and then the graves of the Republic of Cyprus’ founding vice president Fazil Kucuk and influential Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, signing special memorial books at all three locations.

At the Ataturk statue, he wrote that as ambassador, he will “continue to provide all kinds of support so that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is the most meaningful work in the Turkish Cypriot people’s fight for peace, happiness, and prosperity … can take its rightful place in the international arena”.

He then wrote at Denktash’s grave that the Republic of Turkey will “continue to stand by the Turkish Cypriot people in every field and in every way they need, as it has done today”, and that it will “continue to be the TRNC’s greatest supporter, with determination”.

A total of 24 men have led the Republic of Turkey’s mission in Nicosia since the signing of the Zurich and London agreements to create the Republic of Cyprus in 1959, with Emin Divana being named the country’s first ambassador in Cyprus on August 17, 1960.

Between 1963 and 1983, the head of the Turkish diplomatic mission on the island was effectively accepted as a charge d’affaires, with neither Archbishop Makarios III nor Spyros Kyprianou accepting their credentials.

When the north unilaterally declared independence in 1983, ambassadors began submitting their credentials to the Turkish Cypriot leader of the day and have done since then.

Basceri’s reappointment was announced at the end of last month, with his 38-year-old predecessor Yasin Ekrem Serim having only lasted a little over six months in the role. Basceri had previously served between 2018 and 2022.

Diplomatic sources suggested to the Cyprus Mail that the return of an “old head” in Basceri may indicate forthcoming movement on the Cyprus problem.

They drew potential links between the replacement of Serim with Basceri and the United Kingdom’s decision to appoint Michael Tatham, who had previously served as the country’s deputy ambassador to the United States and ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as High Commissioner in Nicosia.

Serim’s removal from the role comes at the end of a turbulent week in which he and his father Maksut Serim were accused of being in league with Turkish Cypriot businessman Halil Falyali, who was assassinated in 2022, and Erdogan, and potentially involved in criminal activity.

Falyali’s widow Ozge Tasker Falyali having been one of 250 people indicted in Turkey following a large-scale investigation into money laundering and illegal gambling, though Serim’s lawyer Omer Faruk Karaguzel described the claims against his client as “baseless”.

Ali Murat Basceri was during his first stint in the north accused of interfering in the 2020 Turkish Cypriot leadership election by then-Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, who alleged that he was using the ’embassy’ as an “election headquarters” for then-candidate Ersin Tatar, who went on to win that year’s election.

In an interview with television channel TV2020 at the time, Akinci alleged that MPs from Turkey’s ruling parties the MHP and AK Party had “visited villages and said ‘do not vote for Akinci’”, and compared the embassy’s conduct during the election campaign to a coup d’état.

Basceri had responded in kind at the time, saying Akinci’s accusations had “no basis in reality” and said Akinci was “creating antagonism with Turkey as an election strategy”.

Akinci had made the accusations after Basceri had invited six ‘MPs’ from Tatar’s political party the UBP to a dinner at the headquarters of the Turkish Cypriot security forces command.

Hasan Tacoy, then ‘economy minister’ and one of the attendees, had quipped after the meal that “we talked about all kinds of elections”.

Journalist Ali Kismir’s reaction to that meal and other meetings, describing the building as a “brothel”, is what found him charged with having “insulted” the Turkish Cypriot armed forces and facing up to 10 years in prison.