Silent anxiety before Erdogan visits Athens
The government is preparing for the High Cooperation Council (HCC) meeting between Greece and Turkey, which will be held in Athens on December 7, with no high hopes, but also with no fear of a breakdown in relations at this stage.
Various agreements are expected to be advanced in the broader context of the positive agenda (political protection, border crossings, trade and so on), but the most intriguing question that remains unanswered – especially given that, in addition to the HCC meeting, there will also be a one-on-one meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – concerns the next steps of this process of opening Greek-Turkish channels, which began after the NATO summit in Vilnius last July.
Sources with extensive knowledge of the interactions that have occurred in recent months at various levels have concluded that Greece has a stronger desire to move bilateral relations toward conversations that are likely to result in solutions. On the contrary, there appears to be a reluctance on Turkey’s side to move things forward. Of course the nature of the Greek-Turkish issues precludes even simple discussions, let alone solutions.
It should be noted that two events have caused some concern in Athens before the December meeting. The first was Erdogan’s visit to Berlin and the torpedoing of any possibility of a German-Turkish consensus on important issues during his joint statements with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The other concern was Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s remarks about the Muslim minority in Thrace, which Turkish officials dub “Turkish,” and of countrymen in the Dodecanese.
