Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides met on the sidelines of a summit in Hungary on Thursday, in a rare and unusual encounter between traditional foes, Reuters reported, citing Cypriot officials.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, was also present, and they were later joined by Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Edi Rama, the prime ministers of Greece and Albania, respectively, Yiannis Antoniou, Cypriot deputy government spokesperson, said in a post on X.
The meeting was not planned. Encounters between the leaders of Turkey and Cyprus seldom occur and are almost always by chance. The two countries do not have diplomatic relations, as a result of a bitter conflict going back decades and the division of the island between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
Photos released from the encounter showed Erdoğan and Christodoulides with other officials sitting around a low coffee table in a conference hall.
In Athens, officials said the discussion focused on the US presidential election and international developments.