Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras travels to a two-day visit to Ankara and Istanbul. Many Greeks are skeptical about the meaning of this visit to Turkey.
2017 was Erdogan in Athens As the first Turkish President after 65 years
“Visit to the mine field” was the headline of the Athenian newspaper TA NEA. A “Turkish adventure” suspected of the Online Portal In.Gr. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, meets the Left. Then, he traveled to Istanbul to talk with the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I.
In December 2017 Erdogan came to Athens as the first Turkish President after the age of 65 years who visited the neighbouring country a visit. Clear signs of reconciliation?
In Greece, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos seems to assume: “Both sides will cooperate so that we can find a solution to our bilateral problems,” he said at a press conference on Thursday.
Travel to talk to?
Not all share this optimism. Angelos Syrigos, Professor, for Europe to Athens studies at the Panteion University, sees no specific cause for the Tsipras-visit. Between Athens and Ankara, it is important to maintain the communication, says Syrigos in an interview with DW. On the other hand: “Whoever sets out on a visit to only the communication paths, runs the risk to be with the Agenda of the host’s face,” warns the scientist.
Cyprus is still split on a Greek and a Turkish part
The Greeks see themselves through territorial claims of Turkey in the Aegean sea threatened. For tension, the situation of the Turkish minority in Thrace, which is from the Greek point of view, not Turkish, but “Muslim” – because it is not characterized by ethnic characteristics. Ankara insists that the minority elects its religious leader, the Mufti, directly.
Erdogan will appeal to the Tsipras visit, believes Syrigos. However, “Athens points out that the Mufti performs not only religious, but also judicial functions and, therefore, for constitutional reasons, is not directly elected”.
A new impetus to resolving the Macedonia dispute?
After all, have to deal with Tsipras and Erdogan to be a Problem for less: The Turkish foreign Ministry, the settlement of the name dispute welcomed to Macedonia. A few months ago, Erdogan warned that Ankara will be connected with Skopje “brotherly” and he supported “Macedonia” in the name dispute.
With this helicopter, the eight soldiers of the Turkish army fled to Greece and got asylum
Conspiracy theories made the rounds in Hellas: Allegedly, Ankara, and Skopje had agreed on an Alliance to the detriment of Athens. Now Tsipras has been causing a stir with the statement, the compromise in the name dispute could be the efforts to find a solution to the Cyprus issue, a new impetus. This Tsipras said in an interview with Cypriot President Nikos Anastassiadis last week in Nicosia.
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Political scientist Syrigos doubts, however, that it is in Ankara to serious Cyprus-talks. “For decades, the Athenian Position is that it is not a negotiation between Greece and Turkey, but between Cyprus and Turkey. It remains, even if the Republic of Cyprus by Turkey is not recognized,” says Syrigos.
Terrorists or threatened the citizens?
A new point of contention of the dispute is formed by eight soldiers of the Turkish army, which fled in 2016, after the failed coup attempt after Greece and asylum. “We will pack up, back to Turkey and the Turkish justice,” said the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag 2018. Erdogan demanded the extradition of the officers with the justification that they were terrorists and responsible for the coup. The Supreme court of Greece, but has refused an extradition.
According to media reports, Erdogan wanted to appeal to on Tuesday the subject again. With care it is registered in Athens, the recent decision of the National security Council in Turkey: It was “unacceptable that some countries to extradite fugitive members of terrorist organizations”, – stated there.
Energy projects remain on the Agenda
New tensions, but also opportunities to bring the upcoming energy projects in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is mainly on the extraction of natural gas off the coast of Cyprus. There is a sample hole of the U.S. group Noble Energy joined in 2011 for the first time on gas fields, today the energy giant of France, Italy and the United States are active in the Region. A cooperation between Greece, Egypt and Cyprus in the energy sector is aiming for, the island in the Mediterranean sea plays a leading role.
Turkey is reluctant, since the Republic of Cyprus recognizes, and moreover, feared that the revenues of the Greeks, only the Island and the Turkish Cypriots for the benefit of the.
Gasvorkom containers in front of Cyprus, a bone of contention – but can also pose a Chance
Turkish rhetoric that we must not always take for face value, says Alex Lagakos, co-founder of the Athens Think-Tanks “, the Greek energy Forum (GEF)”. After all, the gas previous to the South of Cyprus, says the energy expert of the DW. Obstacles there were in waters that were regarded by the Turks as their own “exclusive economic zone (EEZ)”.
Lagakos, but also points to good news: “the other day, it managed a Greek private company for the first time, a contract for direct Gas supplies from Turkey to negotiate,” he says. You could build in the future. Finally, Greece and Turkey, in 2005, had come up through a Pipeline in Alexandroupolis closer. “Now it’s about the Potential for cooperation in the field of energy to exploit,” says the energy expert.