"A a squadron of F-16 fighter jets have been based at at Turkish airstrip in northern Cyprus since 2011, however it is understood the Turkish jets took off from Incirlik air base in Turkey, in order to intercept the British planes. "
I might be splitting hairs, it might be inaccurate reporting or things might have changed, but last time I was at Incirlik it was home to Turkish AAR not F-16s. The F-16s are a bit further over to the east at Diyarbikir or west at Konya.
So unless there has been some shuffling around or assets have been repositioned, it could be more like F-16s forward deployed and AAR launched in support of QRA from Northern Cyprus if anything did indeed come out of Incirlik.
But tied into PN's point aside, if they had launched from the north of the island, I doubt you would put a tanker up into a potentially high threat environment as a HVT and in any case I doubt it would be required given the short range. So potentially the F-16s could have launched from the mainland with AAR support. Just a late evening thought over a snifter, could be wrong.