The program of the Mitsotakis-Erdogan meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit and the expectations of Athens

Day of Truth for Greek-Turkish Relations will come the day after tomorrow in Vilniuswhen the numerous side events of the NATO summit (11-12 July) begin.

The main program of the meeting revolves around the situation in Ukraine, but for Greece the priority is the opportunity for the two new governments in Athens and Ankara to take advantage of the situation, which stems primarily from Turkey’s tactical abstinence from tensions on the ground after the devastating earthquake on February 6. Athens is optimistic about the prospect of establishing channels of communication with Ankara, but has no illusions about how big Turkey’s ambitions are in the Eastern Mediterranean, where the biggest problems in Greek-Turkish relations lie.

Three different meetings will take place in Vilnius. The first at the leadership level between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on 12 July. The second is at the level of foreign ministers, between Giorgi Gerapetritis and Hakan Fidan. And the third – at the level of ministers of national defense, between Nikos Dendias and Yasar Güler, who headed the Turkish Armed Forces (TED) until a month ago. The first meeting between Mitsotakis and Erdogan on the Greek side will also be attended by Mr. Gerapetritis and the prime minister’s diplomatic adviser, Anna-Maria Bura. Of course, the Greek delegation in Lithuania will be much larger in order to better prepare the meetings.

It has already become known, based on identical public announcements by the Greek and Turkish defense ministries, that there is an agreement to speed up dialogue at the level of confidence-building measures (CBMs), i.e. between military officials with the participation of some diplomats, while a one-on-one meeting between Dendias and Guler has not yet taken place in order to clarify some details. Important developments are expected to take place after the meeting between Mitsotakis and Erdogan. It is clear that the Mansion House will play a very strong role at this stage, and the presence of Mr. Gerapetritis in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, until recently one of Mitsotakis’s closest associates, will ensure full coordination. Moreover, it seems that an osmosis process is taking place between the Maximou building and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which in the near future will be reflected in the dense movements of experienced diplomats, which have already begun, but have not yet been formalized. As K’s correspondent Manolis Kostidis reports from Istanbul, there seems to be an intention on the Turkish side to move the dialogue processes forward quickly, and some analysts believe that Cairo can also play a role in closing the gap as Egypt normalizes its relations with Turkey.

Mitsotakis’s headquarters believe that the current situation is significantly different from the meeting that took place in September 2019, shortly after his first election as prime minister, with well-known, not encouraging results. Recall that that meeting was actually torpedoed by Erdogan’s very tough position, which was confirmed a few months later by the signing of the Turkish-Colombian memorandum and – next year – Oruts Reyes and the crisis in Evros. An important link between 2019 and today is Deputy Foreign Minister Alexandra Papadopoulou, who has a complete understanding of everything that happened then and after, with the added benefit of three years in Washington, which gave her a very good understanding of the depth of change, occurred in the way US foreign policy is formulated.

At the NATO level, however, in addition to the overarching issue of Sweden’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is an informal part of the negotiations between Washington and Ankara over the F-16 and not only, there are questions purely Greek-Turkish character. In previous days, K showed that the Americans were trying to find a compromise formula after the demand of the Turkish delegation to NATO that the Bosporus and Dardanelles be called “Turkish Straits” (Istanbul and Canakale, respectively), in violation of the 1936 Montreux Convention defining their status. The Americans, with the assistance of the NATO Military Committee (MCC) and smaller countries (such as Norway), at the level of the North Atlantic Council, have tried to propose a dual designation to break the deadlock. However, the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided that this proposal could not be accepted. Negotiations are ongoing and, according to recent developments, it has been proposed to add a footnote clarifying that NATO’s regional plans do not change policy or interpret legal positions, apparently referring to the primacy of the Montreux Convention over any other interpretation. Turkey’s right to call the straits “Turkish Straits” is, of course, retained.

While this issue does not seriously anticipate the acute problems of Greek-Turkish relations between 2018 and early 2023, it is seen as another attempt by Ankara to change the meaning of the international treaties that largely define them. Recall that Montreux Convention 1936 was, in fact, postponed for 13 years by the addition of the Lausanne Treaty, which allowed Turkish military control over the straits and the possibility of militarization of the Greek islands of Lemnos and Samothrace. Through diplomatic manoeuvres, such as that regarding the straits or the supposedly “unclear” sovereignty status of the Eastern Aegean islands not named in the Lausanne Treaty, Ankara is essentially trying to cancel well-defined concepts and situations.

F-35
Finally, it should be noted that after Vilnius, it is expected – and if things proceed as expected – a letter of acceptance of the Greek request for the supply of F-35 from the United States will be published, which will serve as the starting point for negotiations between the two parties on this issue. . It should be recalled that the Turkish side has a negative attitude towards the supply of F-35s to Greece without resolving the issue of purchasing and upgrading new F-16s for Turkey.

Kathimerini

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