On Friday 7^th December, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his first visit to Athens in six years, accompanied by an army of ministers and officials. It began and ended with expressions of mutual friendship and hopes for improved relationships in the future, representing a remarkable turnaround from the previously existing state of Graeco-Turkish relations.

It was only four years ago that the Turkish government had sought to unleash a flood of refugees into Greece on the land border at the river Evro. Only 18 months ago, Mr Erdogan had said that Kyriakos Mitsotakis “no longer existed” for him, accusing the Greek leader of trying to block sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey during a visit to the United States – an event characterised in the media on both sides as “Mitsotakis yok”. Turkish ministers and the media had been keeping up a barrage of statements contesting Greece’s sovereignty over certain Aegean islands and promoting the doctrine of the “Blue Fatherland” in which Turkey claims control over 50 per cent of the Aegean Sea. Continual objections were raised to Greece’s “militarisation” of the islands in the Eastern Aegean – supposedly forbidden under the Treaty of Lausanne – and Turkish fighter jets were invading Greek airspace on a daily basis. Erdogan himself threatened another kind of invasion, quoting a Turkish saying that “we may come suddenly one night”, and claimed that the armed forces’ new Tayfun missile could hit Athens.

An improvement in relations
Since the beginning of the year, however, there has been a gradual shift in Graeco-Turkish relations. It began with Greece’s immediate and heartfelt offers of support to Turkey following the major earthquakes in February. In May Mr Erdogan was reelected President and was relieved of the need to pander to his most nationalistic supporters. In a cabinet reshuffle, the most vociferous purveyors of anti-Greek rhetoric in the past – notably the Foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Defence minister Hulusi Akar – were replaced.

At the same time Mr Erdogan seems to have been abandoning a number of other entrenched attitudes. Economic policy has taken a more conventional course, following the President’s disastrous insistence on keeping interest rates low in the face of galloping inflation. Internationally, Turkey has started mending fences with other countries which it had succeeded in antagonising, and recently expressed renewed interest in joining the European Union. Also, since Greece’s response to the February earthquakes, overflights in the Aegean have more or less ceased, and Turkey announced an official moratorium on these and naval exercises in the area between June and September – to coincide with the tourist season – which seems to have persisted to date.

The two leaders had an hour-long meeting at the NATO Summit meeting in Vilnius in July, in what was described as a “positive atmosphere”, which was possibly brokered by the United States, anxious to avoid further sources of instability in the Eastern Mediterranean. This year meetings were restarted between Greek and Turkish officials on confidence-building measures and what is known as “the positive agenda” – i.e. the furthering of trade and other links between the two countries. On 2nd September the two men met again on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York.

By the time of the current visit, the message from Turkey was that while the many differences with Greece remained it was considered more productive to solve them by negotiation “between friends and neighbours” rather than trying to impose its demands by force. Most importantly, it had signalled its willingness for the two countries’ differences over the extent of their territorial waters to be settled in an international court if all else failed. “Kyriakos, my friend, we won’t threaten you if you don’t threaten us,” Erdogan told Kathimerini in an interview published on the eve of the visit. “Let’s strengthen the trust between our two countries. Let us increase bilateral cooperation in all areas.”

The visit to Athens

On the morning of Thursday 7^th December, President Erdogan arrived at Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Athens and was greeted by the Greek Foreign minister, Giorgos Gerapetritis and the Turkish Ambassador to Athens Çağatay Erciyes. While the visit had been scaled down from the 300-strong delegation originally announced in the Greek media, the number of visitors was still substantial. The motorcade reportedly numbered 55 cars, and according to the Turkish Haber Lütfen’s YouTube channel the delegation included: Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Minister of Treasury and Finance Mehmet Şimşek, Minister of Interior Ali Yerlikaya, Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin, Minister of National Defence Yaşar Güler, Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun, and Chief Advisor to the President and Ambassador Akif Çağatay Kılıç.

The Turkish President first visited his Greek counterpart Katerina Sakellaropoulou at the Presidential Palace, where there was a slightly stiff exchange of formal statements. The Greek President noted that solidarity in the face of tragic events is a characteristic which unites the two countries and said there was an increased need for friendly cooperation in the face of current developments in the region. In reply, Mr Erdogan said that there was an opportunity to start a new era in relations between the two countries. “I think it will be better for the future of both sides to talk about the glass half full,” he said.

Meeting with the Prime Minister
Following the meeting with the Greek President, Mr Erdogan and his entourage walked the short distance across to the Megaro Maximou – the Prime Minister’s Mansion. There was a moment of informality when SkaiTV’s Istanbul correspondent Manolis Kostidis greeted him from the waiting crowd of journalists and he paused for a moment. Kostidis bid him welcome in Turkish and the two men had a brief exchange before the President moved on. Manolis Kostidis lives in Istanbul and makes a daily report on SkaiTV’s Simera (Today) programme, on weekdays from 8.00 to 9.00 am. As he told the programme’s presenters the following day, he has been following Turkish politics for the past 26 years, and Mr Erdogan for 21 years: his reports are highly recommended for anyone wanting to follow the latest developments in Turkey.

At the Megaro Maximou, Kyriakos Mitsotakis was waiting to meet Mr Erdogan and the two men greeted each other warmly before mounting the red-carpeted steps and posing for a formal handshake for the press. As they went inside they were greeted by the prime-ministerial dog Peanut, whom Kyriakos Mitsotakis adopted in April 2021 on a visit to an animal shelter in Iliopoulis on World Stray Animals Day. Peanut seems to relish his role as official ice-breaker when foreign dignitaries visit.

One-to-one meeting and a joint press conference
The two leaders first had a private meeting, followed by a press conference at which the Turkish President spoke of the need to carry out “constructive dialogue” on the issues dividing the two countries. “We want to make the Aegean Sea a sea of peace and cooperation. As Turkey and Greece, we seek to be an example to the whole world. I say it openly, there is no problem between us so big that it cannot be solved, so long as we move in good faith and focus on the big picture,” he said, adding that the countries should maintain open channels of communication.

Mr Mitsotakis noted that there had been a significant reduction in migrant flows in the recent period, which was partly due to improved cooperation between the police, coast guard and harbour police of both countries. He said that Greece strongly supported Turkey’s accession process to the EU, and announced that the European Commission had approved Greece’s granting of 7-day tourist visas to Turks wishing to visit 10 Greek islands near to the Turkish coast.

There had been no substantive discussion of the main areas of contention been the two nations – the Cyprus problem and that of the delineation of maritime zones – but the Prime Minister expressed the hope that the latter could be a subject for future talks. Both leaders had agreed on the desirability of increasing bilateral trade, a realistic target for the next five years being to increase it from the current €5 billion to €10 billion. President Erdogan having expressed the view that meetings between the two countries should continue on a regular basis, the Prime Minister said that he had been invited to visit Turkey and would be making a trip to Ankara in April.

The High-Level Cooperation Council
Later, over a working lunch, the two leaders the chaired the Fifth High-Level Cooperation Council, a bilateral meeting of ministers which was inaugurated in 2010 by Mr Erdogan while he was still Prime Minister, but which had not been held since 2016. A lot of preparatory work had clearly been done behind the scenes, as some 15 agreements and memoranda of cooperation were signed on a wide range of sectors, from tourism, energy and trade to research, education and transport.

One of the agreements concerned the creation of a new power interconnector between Rodopi and Babaeski, across the Greek-Turkish border, and a 600 MW increase in two-way energy flows. Others covered the exchange of agricultural expertise, cooperation in dealing with extreme weather events, forest fire prevention and response, combating illegal fishing and research for rural development.

Most significant was the two leaders’ signing of the Athens Declaration on Friendly Relations and Good-Neighbourliness, a document which signalled the two nations’ intention to conduct their relations on a more friendly footing from now on. In the agreement, the parties agree “to engage in constructive and meaningful consultations” in three main areas:
– political dialogue on issues of mutual interest;
– the Positive Agenda, which comprises measures of common interest in a multitude of sectors – from business and science, agriculture and the environment, to health, education and social security;
– Confidence Building Measures in the military field to avoid unwarranted sources of tension.
The parties also commit to refrain from making any statements or actions likely to undermine the spirit of the declaration or to endanger peace and stability in the region. They will also endeavour to resolve any dispute in an amicable manner, if necessary through recourse to channels provided for in the United Nations Charter

The text notes that the Agreement is not binding under international law, and should not be interpreted as conferring any legal rights or obligations on the Parties. The full text of the Declaration can be seen in a separate post, here.

Following the meetings at the Prime Ministerial Mansion, Mr Erdogan proceeded to the Turkish Embassy where he met representatives of the Muslim community in Thrace, whom he would have been unable to meet otherwise following the cancellation of his trip to northern Greece, before returning home in the late afternoon.