Erdogan pledges 'new era' in relations with Greece

ATHENS, Greece (AFP) - 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."

Improving relations 

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. A diplomatic source speaking on condition of anonymity called it a "positive step" in the rapprochement. Greek migration minister Dimitris Kairidis this week said the two countries' coastguards had been cooperating smoothly on migration in past months.

He did not rule out an agreement with Ankara to station a Turkish officer on the Greek island of Lesbos, and a Greek officer at the western Turkish port of Izmir. Thursday's talks are expected to also discuss the Israel-Hamas war, where Erdogan has shown no sign of abandoning his support of Hamas militants.

In contrast, Mitsotakis has made a clear distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people, stating that Israel had suffered a "savage terrorist attack" on October 7 that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas following the deadliest attack in its history and launched a retaliatory military campaign that has killed more than 16,000 people in Gaza, mainly civilians, according to the territory's Hamas authorities.