Erdogan pledges ‘new era’ in relations with Greece

ATHENS: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged Thursday to open a “new era” in relations with historic rival Greece, as he began his first official visit to Athens since 2017.

In meetings with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Katerina Sakellaropoulou during a five-hour visit, the Turkish leader is expected to discuss trade, regional issues and the perennially thorny issue of migration.

“I believe that the Turkey-Greece strategic cooperation meeting will lead to a new era” in relations, Erdogan told Sakellaropoulou, adding that “we need to be optimistic, and this optimism will be fruitful in the future.”

In statements with Sakellaropoulou, Erdogan said he aimed to nearly double bilateral trade volume to 10 billion dollars (9.3 billion euros) from 5.5 billion currently.

Ankara has served as a migration bulwark since a 2016 deal with the European Union, which Mitsotakis and fellow EU leaders hope to update.

A retinue of diplomats accompanying Erdogan are also broaching with Greek counterparts the longstanding issue of Greek-Turkish territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea.

Erdogan has questioned century-old treaties that set out Aegean sovereignty, and Turkish and Greek warplanes regularly engage in mock dogfights in disputed airspace.

The discovery of hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean has further complicated ties, with Ankara angering Athens in 2019 by signing a controversial maritime zone deal with Libya. Last year, he accused Greece of “occupying” Aegean islands and threatened: “As we say, we may come suddenly one night.”

But relations have improved since February, when Greece sent rescuers and aid to Turkey after a massive earthquake killed at least 50,000 people.

Mitsotakis, the conservative prime minister who won a second four-year term in June, has also shown readiness to reduce tension with Ankara.

The two leaders previously met in September in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Erdogan was last in Athens in 2017, when he met Mitsotakis’ leftist predecessor Alexis Tsipras.

Without sidestepping the territorial disputes that have long existed between the NATO allies, Mitsotakis favours settling differences at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Greek and Turkish ministers will hold a meeting of the high cooperation council, a bilateral body that last convened in 2016.