Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Representative Office in New York

The Representative Office of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in New York City is the de facto mission of the TRNC to the United Nations Organization (as well as a de facto Consulate-General).
Status
The United Nations does not recognize the TRNC as an independent country. Because of this, the office does not have formal diplomatic status under the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. As such, the United Nations does not have the TRNC flag as part of its collection of national flags flying at its headquarters at UN Plaza, nor does the Secretary General accept credentials from the head of mission.
Despite this, contacts (both unofficial and official) are carried out by the Office of the Representative of the TRNC within the United Nations and other missions.
Unlike the other TRNC representatives in the USA, this office is not subordinate to the Washington D.C. Representative Office as the latter serves as the de facto embassy to the United States of America.
Ranking Diplomat
Mr. Kemal Gökeri serves as the current de facto TRNC Chief of Mission (officially regarded as the Representative of the Turkish Cypriot Community in New York City), succeeding in January 2007.
Legal Action
American Attorney Athan Tsimpedes is currently coordinating legal action against this Representative Office which is operating as a commercial enterprise and has been selling stolen properties owned by British citizens. The same Attorney is also co-ordinating a Class Action against Northern Cyprus for Greek Cypriots to be compensated for loss of use of their properties since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
Both the British High Commission in Cyprus and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have issued warnings regarding the purchase of property in northern Cyprus.
Further information
This office also handles consular matters such as tourist information and visas. Objections to the presence of this office by the internationally recognized government of the Republic of Cyprus through its own UN mission are countered by the fact that as the mission — and its staff — has no official diplomatic status (either under United States law or the United Nations directives regarding foreign missions accredited to them), the presence of the mission is not illegal, as it is regarded simply as an information center run by persons with non-diplomatic visas, and as such does not imply formal recognition of the TRNC by the UN or the United States.

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