23 January 2019•Update: 23 January 2019
By Sertac Bulur
ANKARA
Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) signed an agreement on the recognition of driver's licenses on Wednesday, an official said.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Turkish citizens will be allowed to use their driver's licenses in the TRNC and vice versa.
“Our citizens living in the TRNC and Turkish Cypriots living in Turkey will be happy that we mutually lifted the limitations,” Soylu added.
Tolga Atakan, the Turkish Cypriot minister of public works and transport, said that this is a very important step.
“Our aim with this agreement is to strengthen the already close relations between the motherland [Turkey and TRNC] and reduce the difficulties each country’s citizens face,’’ Atakan added.
After signing the agreement, Atakan presented a TRNC driver's licence to Soylu.
Cyprus was divided into a Turkish Cypriot state in the north and a Greek Cypriot administration in the south after a 1974 military coup was followed by violence against the island’s Turks and Turkey’s intervention as a guarantor power.
The status of the island remains unresolved in spite of a series of negotiations over the years.
An initiative in Crans-Montana, Switzerland in July 2017 under the auspices of guarantor countries Turkey, Greece, and the U.K. ended in failure.
