First round of exploratory talks to focus on technical issues

The understanding between the Greek and Turkish Ministries of Foreign Affairs is that the diplomatic missions will discuss on January 25 the point where exploratory contacts ended in 2016 and the issues that may have been added to the agenda of each country.

Ankara has implied that other issues will be added, such as the request to demilitarize the Greek islands of the eastern Aegean, as well as issues of island sovereignty that have not been raised in the previous 60 rounds of talks that have taken place.

In Turkey, several officials argue that many things have changed since 2016, such as the signing of Turkey-Libya agreement on the maritime borders and a similar deal between Greece and Egypt.

While previous talks focused more on the Aegean, now the issues have been extended to the Eastern Mediterranean. Ankara claims that the continental shelf of Kastellorizo ​​is an issue that concerns the Eastern Mediterranean since the island is not in the Aegean.

Athens says that Kastellorizo belongs to the Dodecanese island complex, therefore it concerns Greece’s continental shelf as a whole.