For months, there was apparently silence between the governments in Greece and Turkey. But now there is hope that both sides will come together again. At least the heads of government are talking to each other again. The Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has on Friday with the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the phone. This was announced by the Greek Prime Minister’s office.
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The two top politicians had agreed to “maintain the bilateral communication channels,” said a statement from Athens. They also spoke about the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and tourism.
Greek-Turkish relations have been freezing cold for several months. Strong naval organizations from the two neighboring countries patrol the eastern Mediterranean. In the air there are mock battles between the bombers of Greece and Turkey. The Turkish Air Force flies over Greek islands at low altitude almost every day. The two ThenStates have been fighting over sovereignty in the Aegean for decades and suspected rich natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean south of Crete.
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In March Erdogan declared the border with Greece and thus with the EU open to migrants. Then thousands of people made their way west. The Greek security forces prevented migrants from entering the EU. At the time, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen thanked the Greeks for being the “European shield”. There were always scandalous events at the border.
When a German police officer patrolled the Greek river Evros at the end of April, a Turkish soldier fired a shot. Joint research from SPIEGEL, Report Mainz and Lighthouse Reports had also revealed that the Greek coast guard picked up boat refugees, put them on life rafts, dragged them to Turkey and then left them to their fate.
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