2826. 🇹🇷 🇮🇴 New Issues From Northern Cyprus; BIOT Not Dead Yet.

 

New issues -

🇹🇷 Postal service of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus -

12 November 2025 - Works by Northern Cyprus cartoonists - 4 stamps. Designed by Kustafa Camal Azizoğlu, Husain Mehmet Ulubatli, Çakmak and Alper Susuzlu and printed by Devlet Basimevi. Rating:- ***.

12 November 2025 - Chess in Northern Cyprus - 2 stamps. Designed by Gabriel Sönmezer and printed by Devlet Basimevi. Rating:- ***.

BIOT - Reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

On 22 May 2025 I published this -

  On the basis of the belief that the issue was settled - the issue being that the British government would pay the Republic of Maurice £30 billion to take over the British Indian Ocean Territory - I removed the BIOT from my list of active Commonwealth philatelic entities. This turned out to be somewhat precipitate as the British Parliament still had to pass a bill to allow the government to lose the strategically important islands as well as the £30 billion it had promised to pay Mauritius where there was a considerable amount of pleasure voiced by the public there as the prime minister of Mauritius promised he would use it to cut taxes in Mauritius. 

  The descendants of the people who had lived in the Chagos Islands for 200 years, known as the Chagossians, who had been expelled from the Chagos Islands in the early 1970s by the British, were less pleased than the Mauritians because they would never be able to return to their ancestral homeland. It was a rare case of a colonial people wanting to continue with British rule. They mounted a heavy resistance to the bill which would deprive them of their homes and they were supported by the British opposition parties and other influential people. The bill to abandon the Chagos Islands did however make its way through the House of Commons and was then debated in the House of Lords where there was heavy resistance to it and the British government stepped back from attempting to take the final step. Today it has been announced that the bill will not be proceeded with until next year. 

  Therefore the British Indian Ocean Territory, for the present at least, continues to exist as a political entity though we do not expect to see any new stamps being released. I shall, however, return it to my list of philatelic entities until, and if, the bill to end the territory for ever is passed eventually.

BIOT - The present situation as one British commentator sees it.