NICOSIA, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Cypriot government confirmed on Tuesday that President Nicos Anastasiades secretly met and had talks with Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on the Cyprus issue.
"In the light of the fact that the information has already leaked to the media, we must confirm that such a meeting had taken place in New York. The President did brief the party leaders about it at their meeting on Monday," government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said in a written statement.
Direct meetings between Cypriot and Turkish government officials have been almost non-existent.
The Mediterranean Sea island has been divided since 1974 after Turkish troops occupied the north following a coup by the military rulers of Greece at the time.
The last time Anastasiades met Cavusoglu was at the United Nations-led conference on Cyprus in 2017, which ended in failure at Crans Montana, Switzerland.
Press reports suggested that there was no breakthrough at the Anastasiades-Cavusoglu meeting, but political analysts said it may have set the pattern of future contacts in the process of trying to end the partition of the eastern Mediterranean island.
Leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, Mustafa Akinci, who has been the negotiator with Anastasiades since 2015, reacted by suggesting that any meetings of Greek Cypriots with Turkish officials should be balanced by meetings of Turkish Cypriot side with Greek government officials.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is currently engaged in contacts through a personal envoy with all the parties involved in the Cyprus issue to decide whether it would be possible to call a final session of negotiations to conclude an agreement.
His envoy, U.N. official Jane Holl Lute, is expected to have a second round of contacts with the parties involved.
