MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Turkish Foreign Ministry unleashed a wave of criticism on Thursday of a declaration on the Cyprus problem, adopted at the recently held fifth Summit of the Southern European Union Countries.

"The commendation in the declaration of the so-called efforts by the Greek Cypriots regarding the settlement process in Cyprus and the expression of support for their unilateral hydrocarbon activities in the Eastern Mediterranean clearly display the continuation of the Greek Cypriot Administration's abuse of its EU membership", the ministry said in a statement, published on its official website.

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The statement was made after on Tuesday the seven participants of the summit — Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain — adopted a joint declaration, acclaiming efforts made by the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus toward the reunification of the island, and expressing their support for the exploration of natural resources on Cyprus's shelf as the country's sovereign right.

The island of Cyprus has been de facto divided into the Republic of Cyprus and the non-recognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus since the 1970s when Turkey sent its troops to the island in response to an attempted coup by the Greek military. As a result, Ankara occupied nearly 40 percent of the country's territory, where the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was proclaimed in 1983. Turkey remains the only country in the world that recognizes the republic as a sovereign state.

Back in 2011, rich offshore gas reserves were discovered off Cyprus's coast. Ankara has been opposing the exploration of the resources by foreign companies with the permission of the Republic of Cyprus, claiming that it violates the rights of the Turkish community living on the island, who, according to Turkey, also have a right to these natural resources.

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The talks on the reunification of the island have been ongoing for years, however, they were interrupted numerous times. The latest negotiations took place between 2015 and 2017 but did not yield any results because of their sudden collapse.