Turkey “does not take seriously” claims that it attempted to “exclude” Cyprus from the summit on the future of Gaza which was held in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh earlier in the week, a top Turkish official said on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, the official said the claims have no correlation with the truth, and that “the Greek Cypriots’ only interlocutor is the TRNC”.

They added that “we do not do diplomacy in public”, while also pointing out that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has “not shied away from meeting” Christodoulides in the past, with the pair having sat around the same coffee table on the sidelines of a European Political Community summit in Budapest last year.

The comments come after newspaper Phileleftheros had claimed that “Ankara attempted to exclude the ‘defunct’ Republic of Cyprus, as it considers it”, but that this “ultimately failed and President Nikos Christodoulides was in Sharm El-Sheikh and was right behind Erdogan at the time of the signing” of the agreement.

The newspaper had added that Christodoulides had been invited to the summit as “a result of both the very good relations which Nicosia maintains with countries in the region, and a series of actions which had preceded it in recent times”.

After the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting, Erdogan had said that “Turkey, beyond being a great power, is actually the conscience of humanity”, and that “our hand reaches out to wherever there is an oppressed person in the world”.

He stressed his country’s efforts to contribute humanitarian aid to Gaza, saying that “since the ceasefire began, a total of 350 of our lorries have entered Gaza”.

He also said that “the reconstruction of Gaza is of the utmost importance”, and that “we will work tirelessly to meet the shelter needs of the people of Gaza before winter arrives”.

Meanwhile, the Cypriot government had also highlighted its own contribution to the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza, while also beginning to compile its own plans for Cypriot involvement in Gaza’s future.

Christodoulides had said on Sunday that he wanted “Cypriot companies to have a role in the reconstruction” of Gaza, before returning from Sharm El-Sheikh  speaking of “six initiatives the Republic of Cyprus can undertake” based on Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza’s future.

Cypriot government sources told the Cyprus Mail on Tuesday that those six initiatives were based on three subjects: security, humanitarian aid and reconstruction, and that they had been submitted in the form of a letter to the European Union and the United Nations in Sharm El-Sheikh, while copies had also been distributed to the summit’s other attendees.

The letter, they said, spoke of how Cyprus can “utilise our geographical position” to contribute to the future of Gaza, “just as we did for the Amalthea initiative”.

“Right now, there are no details, as the details will come about based on how and when we are needed and how the peace plan is implemented. Based on the plan, and based on the implementation of the plan, the details will come later,” they said.

“We are basically saying, ‘whatever help you may need, we are here to utilise our geographical position and the fact that we are accepted by both Israel and Palestine, and by the Arab states, to offer what we can to help’.”