Greece, Turkey ... difficult talks will start on 25th of this month

The Greek newspaper Kathimerini said the countdown to the resumption of exploratory contacts between Greece and Turkey has begun, with the 61st round scheduled to take place in Istanbul on January 25th.

According to the newspaper, after about five years from the previous round of exploratory contacts, Athens does not know exactly what to expect, given everything that has happened since the attempted coup against Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016, and the clear national transformation that Ankara has taken since then.

In addition, it is also evident in Athens that much of what is discussed in public is motivated more by the intention to create impressions, such as the proposal that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama be a mediator and that the meeting of Foreign Ministers Nikos Dendias and Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu take place in Tirana, which is not accepted by the side Greek it seems.

Exploratory contacts are, by default, difficult, and the main topic of discussions is an agreement on demarcating the boundaries of territorial waters, which at some point came close to settlement.

The Greek side stated that it does not intend to discuss anything else except for issues related to marine areas (territorial waters, continental shelf, and exclusive economic zone). For its part, Turkey raises, publicly at least, a number of issues, most notably the disarmament of the nearby islands and sovereignty over Some islands.

Even if, in theory, the Turkish side raised these issues, as in the past, the Greeks would not simply discuss them, according to the newspaper.

In any case, the first meeting is expected to have an exploratory nature, as the Greek delegates will seek to understand the political mandates of their Turkish counterpart and the kind of margins these discussions will hold.

The main foreign affairs spokesman at the European Commission, Peter Stano, stressed the importance of resuming these contacts, who stressed on Monday that de-escalation and normalization of Greek-Turkish relations is a very important part of the broader European-Turkish relations, as the issues that affect Turkey's relations with any member state of the Union They are issues that concern the entire European Union.

T/S

ANHA