Turkish and Greek leaders meet to ease longstanding tensions

Turkey and Greece agreed to take steps to boost bilateral trade and tourism as the neighbours and Nato allies sought to ease longstanding tensions on energy resources and defence issues.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, making his first trip to Greece since 2017, met Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens as part of efforts to repair ties that have frayed in recent years. 

“There’s no problem that cannot be solved between us,” Erdoğan said after meeting the Greek premier, adding that Turkey hoped to “resolve our current problems through constructive dialogue, good neighbourliness and collaborative efforts”.

Mitsotakis echoed Erdoğan’s sentiment, saying that “I feel a historical responsibility to utilise this opportunity to bring the two states side-by-side, just as our borders are.”

Erdoğan’s visit comes at a critical points in relations between Ankara and Brussels. Turkey has sought to revive long-stalled talks on EU accession, but progress has been undermined by concerns over its adherence to the rule of law, human rights, and Ankara’s delays in approving Sweden’s accession to the Nato military alliance.

Ankara has been urged by both Washington and Brussels to ease tensions with Greece to make progress on Turkey’s key priorities such as its request to purchase US F-16 fighter jets, according to a senior Greek diplomat.

“We want to convert the Aegean into a sea of peace and co-operation. We wish to be an example to the world with the joint steps we will take as Turkey and Greece,” said Erdoğan.

The two leaders said they wanted to double bilateral trade volume to $10bn in the coming years, while Erdoğan said both countries could benefit from further high-level meetings, which should be held annually.

Mitsotakis announced that Greece had received permission from the EU to reactivate a seven-day tourist visa for Turkish visitors for 10 islands close to the Turkish coast. The initiative is expected to boost Greek tourism and helps fulfil one of Erdoğan’s domestic goals of making it easier for Turks to travel to Europe.

Ioannis Grigoriadis, professor at Bilkent University and head of the Turkey programme at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy, an Athens based think-tank, said the rapprochement between Turkey and Greece would create “some calmness in the wider neighbourhood” at a time when the Israel-Hamas conflict has created much “doom and gloom”.

Relations between Athens and Ankara have been rocky for years, with tensions heightening most recently in 2020 when Turkey sent navy ships alongside a survey ship to look for possible oil and gas reserves in disputed waters in the Aegean.

As recently as in May 2022, when Mitsotakis lobbied against Ankara’s efforts to buy the US jets, Erdoğan stated that “there’s no longer anyone called Mitsotakis in my book”.

When a devastating earthquake hit southern Turkey in February, leaving tens of thousands dead and millions displaced, Athens saw it as an opportunity to unfreeze the diplomatic relations between the two countries and was one of the first countries to send humanitarian aid immediately.

Although the meeting marked an initial effort to mend ties between the two countries, the Turkish and Greek leaders avoided the thorniest issues, such as their maritime borders.

“The next phase of the political dialogue, when the conditions are mature, can be the approach to the delimitation of a continental shelf and an exclusive economic zone in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean,” Mitsotakis said.