The Republican Turkish Party was founded by Nalbantoglu in 1970 as an opposition to the turkish cypriot leadership of Fazil Kucuk and Rauf Denktash. In the 1980's the party's political position shifted to the left, as a result of an influx of members who had been students in turkish universities. Under Ozger Ozgur the party started participating in rapprochement meetings with the greek cypriot leftist party AKEL. The party's leader today is Mehmet Ali Talat and the party is leaning towards european social democracy.