Erdoğan, Hristodulides and Mitçotakis met informally in Budapest
The parties, who had either never met before or did not want it to be known that they had met, made plenty of appearances this time.
While three of the four sides of the Cyprus problem were present in the same environment, the fact that Turkish Cypriots were not there left the picture incomplete.
VERY IMPORTANT SQUARES
The meeting, albeit informal, between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Leader Nikos Hristodulides, in the presence of Greek Prime Minister Kiryakos Mitçotakis, was described as a surprise development of historical importance in terms of the Cyprus issue. Since Türkiye does not recognize the “Republic of Cyprus”, it has not officially met with Greek authorities to date; He did not prefer the meetings that took place in informal environments to be known. The Greek Cypriots, on the other hand, have been advocating much more strongly the policy of “Our main interlocutor in the Cyprus problem is Türkiye, the Turkish Cypriots do not have the initiative”, especially since Hristodulides came to power.
GREEKS ANNOUNCED
The first official statement regarding the meeting in Budapest came from the Greek Cypriot Government Deputy Spokesperson. Yiannis Antoniou announced the meeting on social media. Photos of the meeting were published repeatedly by the Greek media. While the Turkish media did not give much coverage to the meeting, they generally limited themselves to referring to the statement of the Greek government spokesman. The Turkish Cypriot media had to follow the developments from the Greek media. In the images appearing in the Greek and Greek media, Erdoğan, Hristodulides and Mitçotakis, as well as Albanian Prime Minister Edi Raman and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, are also seen.
AN OLD ISSUE
The issue of Türkiye and Greece, which are guarantors, meeting with the leaders of the two sides in Cyprus has long been among the controversial topics of the Cyprus problem. Greece does not address the TRNC and Türkiye does not address the “Republic of Cyprus” because it does not recognize it. Although some studies were carried out in the past on the cross-visits of the TRNC President as the “Turkish Cypriot leader” and the “Cypriot President” as the “Greek Cypriot leader”, no progress was made in this direction. To date, Greece has not held a one-on-one meeting, either officially or unofficially, with any TRNC President.
