Greece and Turkey resuming talks

Preliminary contacts are difficult, given that from 2002 to 2016 about 5,000 pages...

The 61st round of talks between Greece and Turkey is to take place in Istanbul on January 25. However, nearly five years after the previous round of exploratory contacts, Athens is not sure what to expect, given the events in Turkey following the 2016 coup attempt and Ankara's outright nationalist turn, Kathimeniri reported.

Besides, Athens also understands that much of what is being discussed publicly is more dictated by the intention to impress, for example, the proposal that the Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama act as a mediator and that a meeting of the two Foreign Ministers Nikos Dendias and Mevlut Cavusoglu passed in Tirana, which the Greek side clearly does not accept.

Preliminary contacts are difficult, given that from 2002 to 2016 about 5,000 pages of the protocol were prepared, the main topic of discussion was the agreement on the demarcation of territorial waters, which at some point approached the settlement.

The Greek side noted that it does not intend to discuss anything other than issues related to sea zones. For its part, Turkey, at least publicly, raises a number of issues, primarily the demilitarization of the islands in its vicinity and the sovereignty of some islands. Even if hypothetically, the Turkish side raises these issues, the Greeks simply will not discuss them.

In any case, the first meeting is expected to be of an intelligence nature, as the Greek delegates will seek to understand what the political mandates of their Turkish counterpart will be and what framework these discussions will have.