A Turkish Cypriot ‘MP’ who had been in Iran when Israeli missile strikes on the country began has made it safely into Turkey after travelling over land into the country.

Ahmet Savasan, who belongs to ruling coalition party the UBP, had travelled to Tehran for a health tourism conference, but found himself taking refuge in Turkey’s embassy in the city as missiles began to hit.

With Iran having then closed its airspace, an evacuation plan was put in place for Savasan to be able to exit the country and eventually return to Cyprus.

Ahmet Savasan

To do this, he travelled overland to the country’s far west as part of a secure convoy organised by the embassy, with the journey taking more than 12 hours to complete.

He eventually crossed into Turkey at the Esendere border crossing in the Hakkari province in Turkey’s southeast.

According to media reports, the journey was made all the more difficult by “security checks, communication outages, and tense waits”.

Upon his arrival back in Turkey, he thanked Turkey’s ambassador in Tehran Hicabi Kirlangic for his help in aiding his exit from the country, and wrote “thank god, we are in Turkey”, and “we are in Turkey, we are well, we are safe”.