CEFTUS 4th Anniversary

We celebrated fourth year of our ever increasingly important work on 28th October 2015 with 600 distinguished guests in London Marriott Grosvenor Hotel.

We are extremely grateful for cross-party support from the British Parliament. Several MPs and Lords/Baronesses including Keith Vaz Labour MP, David Amess MP, Tom Brake Liberal Democrat MP, Seema Malhotra Labour MP, Caroline Flint Labour MP, Angus MacNeil SNP MP, Rehman Christi Conservative MP, Stephen Kinnock Labour MP, Joan Ryan Labour MP, Kate Osamor Labour MP, Siobhain McDonagh Labour MP, George Howarth Labour MP, John Woodcock Labour MP, Virendra Sharma Labour MP, Conservative Peers Lord Sheikh, Lord Northbrook, and Baroness Knight of Collingtree, Independent Crossbench Life Peer Lord Karan Bilimoria and Labour Peer Lord McConnell among many others attended our gala event.

Similarly, Mayors and Councillors of many London boroughs, High Commissioner for the Republic of Cyprus to the UK Euripides L. Evriviades and the Kurdistan Regional Government High Representative to the UK Karwan Jamal Tahir were present at the event. Representatives of Kurdish, Turkish and Turkish Cypriot Communities as well as journalists, academics and business people across many industries kindly joined us to celebrate our anniversary. Guests from Turkey included comedian and author Gulse Birsel, journalists Ahmet Sik and Hayko Bagdat and former AK Party MP Mehmet Emin Ekmen.

Presented by Hilat Ozcan, the evening began with speeches from Director of CEFTUS, Ibrahim Dogus, Lord Bilimoria, Keith Vaz MP, Tom Brake MP, Caroline Flint MP and Angus MacNeil MP. The significant political relationship between Turkey and Britain and CEFTUS’ role in building bridges between the two countries were emphasised.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s support message to CEFTUS was relayed and Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s recorded support message was played on the screens. You may see their and other parliamentarians’ support messages on our website, www.ceftus.org and in our new booklet for the years of 2014 and 2015.

Following speeches, winners of the Turkish, Kurdish and Cypriot Community Achievement Awards 2015 were announced. Please click here to view the full list of winners.

Thanks to all who bought raffle tickets on the night. Please see below for the winning numbers. Please email us at [email protected] if your ticket was a winner!