Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan smile after signing a joint statement in Athens this Thursday. GREEK PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE (via Portal)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met on Thursday for a meeting that ended with the setting of a roadmap to strengthen ties between their two countries, which have traditionally been at odds. During the meeting, both leaders signed agreements in 15 areas, including energy sector, education, tourism, rural development, economy and public works. The aim is to strengthen bilateral cooperation to “enhance regional prosperity” in an environment of friendship and mutual trust that seeks to put past tensions behind them.
Greece and Turkey are two countries with many cultural similarities, but also numerous open fronts: Athens wants to expand its territorial waters, which Ankara calls a casus belli; Greece’s Muslim minority – of Turkish descent – is the subject of debate; the Cyprus conflict remains open; There are several disputed islands in the Aegean Sea. Greece was a haven for Kurdish liberation movement militants and other Turkish dissidents; The most ultra-religious sectors of both countries often voice accusations. These entrenched problems have been joined in the last five years by controversies over gas pipelines, the exile of Turkish coup plotters in Greece and the management of immigration policy.
“Geography and history put us in the same neighborhood. Circumstances confronted us several times. Even though there are different opinions on this approach in both countries, I consider it a historic obligation to work to bring both nations closer together. We have managed to restore our ties to calmer waters. Today I look to the future,” said the Greek Prime Minister. “We are two neighboring countries that share in many areas the same sea, the same geography and the same culture. It is natural that there are problems between two countries and even more so between brothers. “We want to transform the Aegean into a sea of peace and cooperation and be an example for the world,” replied the Turk.
Despite efforts to show mutual sympathy, Mitsotakis and Erdogan could not hide the fact that there are issues on which understanding seems to be a long way off. “We do not agree on the Cyprus issue,” said Mitsotakis, referring to the Turkish occupation of the north of this island.
The bilateral meeting took place one day shy of the anniversary of Erdogan’s first visit to Athens. On December 8, 2017, the Turk met with then Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at the same location. But the tone of both meetings was different. On this occasion, the first thing Erdogan did upon arriving in Greece was to question the validity of the Treaty of Lausanne, the 1923 agreement that established the borders of Greece and Turkey. The Prime Minister and the President of the Greek Republic did not want to hide their discomfort with Erdogan’s words. This visit was not intended to converge positions, but rather to make accusations.
Six years later everything is different. Now that Turkey is emphasizing its independence from NATO and distancing itself from its traditional allies, Erdogan has decided to show closeness to his neighbor. Both governments have put aside the most unpleasant issues to intensify relations through existing institutional mechanisms and cultivate solidarity to address common challenges without negatively interfering with pre-existing positions.
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The most important point of the agreement is building military trust. “Friend Kyriakos, we will not threaten you if you do not threaten us,” the Turkish president told Kathimerini, the main conservative Greek newspaper, on the eve of the visit. Erdogan has publicly expressed gratitude for the evacuation of Lavrio, Europe’s oldest refugee camp, which was founded in 1947 and closed last April after five years of being run by Kurdish organizations that Turkey considers terrorists. Another common goal is to increase the bilateral trade volume from 5 billion dollars (4.63 billion euros) to 10 billion.
Mitsotakis has also stated that the meetings with his Turkish neighbor will continue to serve, among other things, the delimitation of each country’s continental shelves and corresponding exclusive economic zones (EEZs). These areas likely contain oil or gas deposits; In fact, one of the largest natural gas discoveries in the world occurred a few years ago in the eastern Mediterranean basin. Turkey and Greece were on the brink of war in the 1990s, and the dispute over Mediterranean energy resources is a constant in their relations.
Mitsotakis and Erdogan are scheduled for the next bilateral meeting, expected to take place in Ankara next spring.
Parallel meetings
The bilateral summit also included a meeting on migration policy between Greek Immigration Minister Dimitris Kairides, Greek Interior Minister Yiannis Oikonomou, Maritime Transport Director Jristos StIlianidis and Turkish Interior Minister Ali Gerlikaya. The heads of the coast guards of both countries were also present. The Turkish Interior Ministry publishes a report every day detailing the number, nationality and type of boats used to rescue the migrants that Greece illegally deports through hot returns, a practice Athens denies and for which Ankara is responsible. to advertise.
Another decision was to establish a 24-hour direct connection, which meets Greece’s requirements. In the joint press conference, Mitsotakis praised Turkey’s work and assured that there was a “significant decrease in migration flows” “thanks to the monitoring of borders and greater cooperation between the authorities of both states.” The numbers contradict his words. There is no decline in arrivals, as they have increased from 12,700 in 2022 to almost 37,000 so far in 2023, and it would be even more noticeable if Greece did not immediately turn away thousands of migrants, as Turkey itself confirms. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 31,132 irregular deportations were registered by November 2023, 4,000 more than in 2022.
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