President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides on Thursday had a rare and unusual encounter as they had coffee on the sidelines of an EU summit in Hungary, Greek Cypriot officials said.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was also present, while they were later joined by Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Edi Rama, the prime ministers of Greece and Albania, respectively, Greek Cypriot deputy government spokesperson Yiannis Antoniou said in a post on X.
The meeting was not planned. Encounters between the leaders of Türkiye and Greek 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 U.S. presidential election and international developments.
