The Educational Counsel Office of London's Turkish Embassy cut the ribbon on a new office Monday and signed an agreement with a British university.

Bulent Çiftçi, the embassy's higher education and learning abroad chief, and Funda Kocabıyık, the Turkish Education Ministry's director of EU and foreign relations, took part in the opening ceremony in central London. Afterwards, Çiftçi signed a pact with Craig Smitherman and Basma Hakim of the University of East Anglia on reducing tuition fees for students with Turkish Education Ministry scholarships. Similar deals are expected with other universities, said the new office.

Çiftçi stressed the importance of the U.K. in higher education, mentioning the more than 1,000 students pursuing master's and doctorates in Britain with Turkish scholarships. Smitherman praised Ankara for investing in universities and institutions of higher learning in Turkey and in their human capital by sending staff to the U.K. "We think that by hosting them in our universities, we can mutually help each other with research and further develop our higher education systems," he said.

The programs of Turkey's Educational Consultancy, of which the Counsel Office is part, include scholarships, foreign language learning, Turkish teaching programs, Turkish culture, and education and completion procedures for master's degrees and doctorates.