Foreign Ministry

The Turkish Cypriot leadership is engaging in intense consultations in Ankara to flesh out a joint position before Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı and President Nicos Anastasiades present their respective maps for a settlement in Cyprus. 

The United States and Russia have engaged in a dangerous diplomatic spat, after the former issued sanctions on the latter over their involvement in hacking U.S. political groups in the 2016 presidential election, which sparked reaction from Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has proposed to President Vladimir Putin the expulsion of 35 US diplomats posted to the country in retaliation to an earlier move by the US administration.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry has downplayed again allegations that Moscow orchestrated cyber attacks aimed at intefering in the US election, saying the claims "do not match reality".

Turkey has the sixth-largest diplomatic network in the world, according to an international global diplomacy index.        

The index published by the Australia-based Lowy Institute for International Policy showed that Turkey has the largest number of diplomatic missions abroad, following the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

Turkey, Russia and Iran are set to meet in Astana in the middle of next month to seek a cessation of hostilities in Syria as part of a meeting that is being dubbed as a "confidence-building step complementary to the Geneva process," a Foreign Ministry official told the Hürriyet Daily News on Dec. 23.  

Greek and Turkish officials will engage in talks this week to lay the groundwork for a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of the crucial January 12 multilateral summit in Geneva about Cyprus.

The United States has not discovered any involvement by Turkey in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) oil trade, the country's ambassador to Ankara has said.  

Turkey and Russia "know" that a movement led by the U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen was behind the attack on the Russian envoy in Ankara, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavuşoğlu told his U.S. counterpart John Kerry in a phone conversation on late Dec. 19, according to a Foreign Ministry official.

An 18-member Russian delegation composed of security officials, prosecutors and autopsy experts arrived in Ankara on Dec. 20 to probe the killing of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov and repatriate his body to Moscow. 

An 18-member Russian delegation composed of security officials, prosecutors and autopsy experts arrived in Ankara on Dec. 20 to probe the killing of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov and repatriate his body to Moscow. 

The plane is expected to depart from Ankara Esenboğa Airport at 4 p.m. local time after the accomplishment of procedures by Turkish and Russian authorities.