Turkish opposition chief challenges Erdogan over Greece visit

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), on Tuesday challenged President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of limiting his demands to an “update” of the Lausanne Treaty during his recent visit to Greece.

“Why didn’t he say anything about the 18 islands occupied by Greece,” Kilicdaroglu said, referring to the Turkish president’s meetings with President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, as well as his comments in an interview with Kathimerini ahead of his visit in which he laid out a series of topics he planned to address.

“Instead of demanding the return of the 18 islands of the Aegean illegally occupied by Greece, he made statements about updating the Lausanne Treaty,” Kilicdaroglu said, suggesting that Erdogan did no go far enough in challenging Greece by demanding a revision of the 1923 agreement that defines the borders between the two countries, among a slew of other bilateral issues.