Delegates confident after start of FIFA Cyprus talks

An opening round of talks aimed at ending more than 50 years of deadlock in Cypriot football has ended with both sides confident of reaching a solution.

The two-hour meeting at the headquarters of world soccer's governing body FIFA on Thursday involved delegates from the official Cyprus FA and the non-official Cyprus Turkish FA.

The talks stopped short of considering concrete solutions to the impasse that has seen Turkish Cypriot players and clubs excluded from international competition since the founding of their breakaway association in 1955.

Instead, both sides agreed to meet again in Zurich on Oct. 27.

"The meeting resulted as expected, because the problem of football on the island of Cyprus is a long-standing one," Cyprus Turkish FA vice president Tahir Seroydas told Reuters.

"We knew it would not be possible to find an end solution in the first meeting but we are ready to make the necessary compromises and believe we will proceed and find a way."

The Turkish Cypriot enclave of about 240,000 people was carved out of territory seized by Turkey in an invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup in Cyprus, and has only been officially recognised by Ankara.

"I think we have achieved the maximum that we could today according to the circumstances," Cyprus FA president Costakis Koutsokoumnis told Reuters.

"It is very delicate especially knowing how politicians can think and react but these talks were purely about football and how we can help the island in football terms.

"The atmosphere was excellent, there is no doubting the will that is there on both sides and I am confident something can be done."