With a positive sign today’s French press comments on yesterday’s visit of the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Athens and his meeting with the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The image of a Turkish president and a Greek prime minister shaking hands with a smile, after an hour and a half meeting at the Maximos Palace in Athens, is not insignificant, as the newspaper “Le Monde” points out in its article under the title “Turkey and Greece are opening a more peaceful “new chapter” in their turbulent relations”.
“After seven years of absence and multiple tensions between Turkey and Greece, Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned to the Greek capital to sign a “declaration of friendship and good neighborliness” with the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the French newspaper underlines, stressing that the Ankara strongman invited his “friend Kyriakos” to open a “new chapter”, after years of turmoil with his neighbor. “Words that would have been hard to imagine a year ago,” the newspaper reports, recalling that in May 2022 the Turkish president had confirmed that Mr. Mitsotakis “no longer existed for him,” accusing him of trying to convince the US Congress to block the sale of airplanes F-16 in Turkey.
The French newspaper attributes Ankara’s shift in Greek-Turkish relations both to the help offered by Greece during the terrible earthquake that hit Turkey and to the fact that at the international diplomatic level Erdogan’s position is improving; above all, after his promise that he will consent to Sweden joining NATO. The newspaper also notes that Erdogan’s turn is also due to the economic situation of his country, which is more than difficult. The Turkish head of state wants to restart Turkey’s accession process to the European Union in order to attract Western investors again, which could be helped by better relations with Greece, according to the French newspaper. Finally, the columnist argues that Erdoğan’s visit to Athens ended in calm tones, without, however, directly discussing the most sensitive issues. The delimitation of the continental shelf of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, which separates them, the maritime exploitation zones, the heavy Cyprus issue remain bone of contention, which are barely touched by the leaders and their representatives, according to “Monde”.
The indication of the “common desire” of the Turkish president and the Greek prime minister to seek solutions to the differences between the two countries, especially in immigration, is also pointed out by the newspaper “Liberation” in an article entitled “After years of high tensions, Greece and Turkey on the road of reconciliation”. It is also emphasized that the visit of the Turkish president to Athens, in the context of of the fifth Hellenic-Turkish Supreme Council of Cooperation, lasted only five hours, but it seems to have repaired five years of tensions between the two countries, as reported by APE-MPE. He emphasizes the warm handshake that the two leaders exchanged on the steps of the Maximos Palace, adding that “from the creation of the modern Greek state onwards, Greek-Turkish relations have seen many phases: periods of conflict, tension, relative calm and cooperation”, but also that in at certain periods of history the two neighbors really look like fraternal enemies.
He notes the desire of the Turkish president for a revision of the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923 and which demarcates most of the borders between Greece and Turkey, adding that since then he has disputed the sea and air spaces, asked for a share in the exploitation of the Aegean and demanded the demilitarization of the Greek islands. According to the French newspaper, today hostility has given way to friendship and as the Greek President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, said to her guest, “natural disasters have brought us closer lately. We must maintain this peaceful climate, even if our differences remain.”
Finally, Mr. Erdogan’s statement that “there is no problem that cannot be solved” between Turkey and Greece is pointed out by the “Figaro” newspaper, underlining that the relations between these two historical rivals, but partners within NATO , have experienced in recent years “fluctuations, which sometimes threatened them dangerously”. In recent years, tensions have been particularly high around the delimitation of the continental shelf of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, the maritime zones of exploitation and the immigration issue, as the newspaper reports, stressing, however, that for Erdogan, who maintains here and long bellicose rhetoric against Greece, which is a member of the European Union, the important thing is “the desire to solve these problems”.
Source: News Beast
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