Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan promised on Thursday, during his first official visit to Athens since 2017, to open a “new era” in relations between Turkey and Greece, after meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, in a trip that seeks to improve economic and political relations between the two neighbouring countries but which has been marked above all by issues such as migration or sovereignty in the Aegean.
“I believe that the new strategic cooperation meeting between Turkey and Greece will lead to a new era” in relations between the two countries, the Turkish president assured his Greek counterpart, to whom he expressed his desire to double trade exchanges between the two countries to 10 billion dollars. “There is no problem between us that cannot be solved,” Erdoğan insisted to journalists, who assured that Turkey’s desire is to resolve all disputes with its neighbour. “Turkey and Greece want to set an example to the world with the steps we are going to take,” he added.
A large delegation accompanied Erdoğan on his visit to Greece, with which relations have taken a 180-degree turn following the aid that Athens sent after the earthquakes that devastated southeastern Turkey on 6 February, leaving more than 50,000 dead. Diplomatic sources have described as a “positive step” the convening of the meeting of high strategic cooperation between the two countries, which had not met since 2016.
Regarding territorial disputes over the sovereignty of waters and airspace in the Aegean, Prime Minister Mitsotakis has said he is in favour of resolving the differences between the two countries at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Another burning issue between the two countries is migration: in this regard, Greek migration minister Dimitris Kairidis claimed a few days ago that Greek and Turkish coastguards have intensified their cooperation in recent months, and hinted at the possibility of a Turkish and a Greek delegate being based in Lesbos and Izmir, respectively, to improve coordination on migrant smuggling.
Greece and Turkey call for protection of civilians in Gaza
During his visit to Greece, Erdoğan reportedly also insisted to Mitsotakis on compliance with international law regarding the protection of the rights of the Turkish minority in the Greek region of Western Thrace, whom the Greek prime minister referred to before journalists as “Muslim citizens” of Greece: “Thrace is for us the desire of Muslims and Christians to live together and in peace,” said Mitsotakis, who acknowledged that relations with Turkey had been “dangerously threatened” in the past before improving markedly since February.
Regarding the situation in Gaza, during his press appearance with Erdoğan Mitsotakis stressed that Turkey and Greece share the view that “all extremist attitudes must be avoided, all humanitarian values must be respected, and unarmed civilians must be protected“.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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