Let's agree to disagree
Welcome to the weekly round-up of news by Kathimerini English Edition. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara this week.
The meeting, held within the framework of the sixth Supreme Cooperation Council between the two countries, saw the two leaders reiterate and stress their commitment in keeping channels of dialogue between Greece and Turkey open.
Mitsotakis noted that any bilateral differences should be managed “with composure and responsibility”, stating that disagreements should not lead to tension. This was echoed by Erdogan who noted that disputes in the Aegean and the East Mediterranean, “while complex, are not unsolvable if there is willingness for dialogue”.
However, despite the reported positive atmosphere of the meeting and the assessment of the Greek government that it was “one of the most substantive [meetings] in recent years”, there seems to have been very little convergence between the two sides on many of the pressing issues.
Mitsotakis, notably, brought up the issue of Turkey’s longstanding threat of war against Greece should the latter choose to extend its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, as laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (which Turkey is not signatory to). “It is time to remove any threat from our relations. If not now, when?”, he asked.
The two leaders also disagreed on the issue of Greece’s Muslim minority in Thrace, which Erdogan referred to as the “Turkish minority in Western Thrace”, something Mitsotakis rejected, in line with Greece’s longstanding position on the matter. He stated that in the Treaty of Lausanne, the minority is stated to be religious in nature, and not ethnic.
Other open issues include the delimitation of maritime zones and the referral of the issue to the International Court of Justice, with Greece again standing firm that this is the only issue to be resolved, and Greece’s continued close co-operation with Israel.
However, the meeting between the two leaders was also accompanied by several bilateral meetings at ministerial level, with ten Greek ministers accompanying the prime minister to Ankara. As a result, several agreements were signed between the two sides to advance the “positive agenda” in bilateral relations.
They include an initiative to promote investment and encourage a new ferry line to link Thessaloniki and Izmir, to pursue and enhance joint action on earthquake preparedness and response, as well as the signing of a memorandum of understanding on cultural co-operation between Greece and Turkey.
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