Turkish, Turkish Cypriot foreign ministers meet

By Tugcenur Yilmaz

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s foreign minister on Thursday met with his Turkish Cypriot counterpart in the Turkish capital Ankara.

Mevlut Cavusoglu and Kudret Ozersay, deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), met at the Foreign Ministry to evaluate progress on the Cyprus issue.

"Evaluated the current situation in the Cyprus issue w/Deputy PM & FM @KudretOzersay of the #TRNC, we will continue with our joint efforts to reach a settlement that ensures the political equality of the Turkish Cypriots & meets their security concerns," Cavusoglu tweeted after the meeting.

Following a coup aimed at annexing Cyprus for Greece, Ankara was forced to intervene on the island in 1974 as a guarantor power. In 1983, the TRNC was founded.

The decades since have seen several attempts to resolve the dispute, all of which ended in failure. The latest attempt, in which guarantor countries Turkey, Greece and the UK took part, ended in 2017 in Switzerland.

Turkey says that any future talks over the divided island of Cyprus must be result-oriented, rather than just for the sake of talking.

*Writing by Dilara Hamit