When Erdogan allowed his officials to talk to Greeks

Despite his professed intransigence and publicly stated refusal to meet with then-Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apparently allowed communication between his officials and their Greek counterparts in order to avoid a major crisis between the two countries, Nikos Dendias, foreign minister in the 2019-23 Mitsotakis government, told Kathimerini.

At NATO’s Madrid Summit on June 29-30, 2022, Dendias asked Erdogan to at least allow his foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, to maintain contact with him. Erdogan listened and did not answer, Dendias said, but, a few hours later, he found himself talking one on one to Cavusoglu. The two ministers maintained their contacts, despite some occasional spats.

Dendias says that a time when things might have gotten out of hand was when the two countries’ navies faced off in the Aegean, in August 2020.