Erdoğan on the visit to Greece: "Let's find common ground like two countries sharing the same sea"

On his upcoming visit to Greece, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke on Wednesday at his party's Grand Turkish National Assembly meeting. At the same time, he again found the opportunity to attack Netanyahu with harsh words, whom he did not hesitate to call the "slaughterer of Gaza."

“We continue to implement our policy of increasing our friends and decreasing our enemies. We do not see diplomacy as a zero-sum game. It is natural for there to be disagreements between countries. The main thing is the will to solve them before they turn into dead ends. This is our approach for the visit we plan to make to Greece on December 7th. We had disagreements yesterday, and we will continue to have them today. This fact does not mean we cannot find common ground as two countries with the same climate and sea. There are many issues in which we can improve our cooperation. I hope our trip will lead to opening a new page for our countries," said the Turkish president.

“The Israelis committed genocide against 2 million people, cutting off their food, electricity and water and leaving them in open-air prisons. They destroyed Gaza. They committed all kinds of atrocities. Sixteen thousand of our brothers and sisters, over 70% of whom were women and children, died in the Israeli attack. More than 35 thousand of our brothers were injured. Two-thirds of the buildings in Gaza were destroyed. Education and health infrastructure collapsed. Netanyahu has already written his name in history as the slaughterer of Gaza," Erdoğan initially said.

"This black mark has also stuck to those who supported Netanyahu. This shameful stain will not be erased from history. We will not forget the anesthesia of Western countries, except for one or two. We will use all available means to hold them accountable. Israel will be held accountable before the law. We stand by our brothers from Gaza with all our means," he added.

Mitsotakis and Erdoğan will meet at the first High-Level Cooperation Council in seven years, set to take place on December 7 in Athens.

Starting with the devastating earthquakes in Southeastern Turkey in early February and the aid provided by Greece and reaching pivotal moments like the re-election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and later Kyriakos Mitsotakis to power, the reset in the relations between the two countries has been achieved. The goal is now to affirm this progress in Athens within ten days, where the Turkish president will depart the same day, proceeding to the next stage by signing specific agreements.

“We aim to manage our difficulties and build upon a positive agenda,” declared Prime Minister Mitsotakis. As he emphasized in a recent interview, “We are not discussing concessions on sovereignty or rights deriving from sovereignty since the ability to have Armed Forces on our islands stems directly from Greek sovereignty over the islands of the Eastern Aegean.”

Recall that the Greek Prime Minister and the Turkish President had agreed to convene the Council during their meeting in March 2022 in Istanbul, but this was not realized due to the escalation of inflammatory rhetoric and aggressive behaviour from Ankara.

Now, there is cautious optimism in Athens (“However, we are not naive,” government sources point out) that the reboot of bilateral relations is being built on more solid ground within a new framework of dialogue and cooperation between the two sides. This includes ministerial discussions between Foreign Ministers Georgios Gerapetritis and Hakan Fidan, meetings of officials responsible for political dialogue, Alexandra Papadopoulou and Burak Akcapar, and negotiations for the so-called “positive agenda,” managed by Greek Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs responsible for economic diplomacy and external relations, Kostas Fragogiannis.

This agenda now revolves around 29 thematic units of economic and trade interest (trade, tourism, shipping, agricultural development, etc.), and discussions are progressing at a satisfactory pace, especially on the 25 points agreed upon in 2022, which are as follows:

1. Activation of the Joint ICT Committee (information and communication technology)
2. The signing of a memorandum of cooperation between Enterprise Greece and Invest in Turkey
3. The signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the Hellenic Organization of Small and Medium Enterprises and the corresponding Turkish institution KOSGEB
4. Convocation of the 4th Joint Tourism Committee and the 9th Forum for Tourism
5. Joint Working Group for Maritime Issues
6. Convocation of the 13th Working Committee on Trade and Economic Cooperation between Greece and Turkey
7. Convocation of the 5th Joint Economic Commission between Greece and Turkey
8. Establishment of a Joint Economic and Trade Committee
9. Convocation of the Joint Committee on Road Transport
10. Mutual recognition of COVID-19 vaccination certificates
11. Convocation of the Joint Committee for cooperation in the field of combined transport
12. Cooperation in the fields of environmental protection, waste management, and recycling
13. Enhancement of business collaborations
14. Cooperation in the areas of certification, mutual recognition, and modernization of technical and vocational education within the framework of alignment with the green and digital transformation of the European Union
15. Convocation of the 5th Joint Science and Technology Committee
16. Maritime education
17. Signing of a memorandum of cooperation in the shipbuilding sector
18. Customs cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matters
19. Upgrading the existing electrical interconnection of Greece-Turkey-Bulgaria
20. Cooperation in the field of Civil Protection and disaster prevention
21. Signing of a social security agreement
22. Settlement of the meeting between the Civil Aviation Services of the two countries
23. Building upgrade of the Kipi border station in Evros (with funding of €4.84 million from the NSRF and the ROP)
24. Commencement of negotiations for the conclusion of a cross-border railway agreement
25. Convocation of the Joint Group of Experts for a high-speed railway line between Istanbul and Thessaloniki and combined transportation.

Significant progress is said to have been achieved on the Migration issue, where the willingness of both sides to deepen their cooperation and limit migration flows from Turkish shores to Greek islands appears evident.

According to sources, Athens and Ankara have reached a preliminary agreement on the migration-refugee issue, which, once finalised and implemented, will open the way for a significant upgrade in cooperation in the field.

This agreement provides that, for the first time, three Greek Coast Guard officers will be permanently stationed in major coastal cities of Turkey and, vice versa, three officers from the Turkish Coast Guard in Greek cities. Their role will be to assist with their presence in better cooperation between the two Bodies, leading to the restriction of migration flows in the Eastern Aegean.

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