Diplomacy | Erdogan wants to visit Greece

With an upcoming visit to Greece, Turkish President Erdogan wants to improve tense relations with Athens.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to usher in a “new era” in the tense bilateral relationship between neighboring countries with a visit to Greece.

Erdogan said he would visit Greece on Thursday during his return flight from the World Climate Conference in Dubai. According to his office, he explained that the purpose of the visit was to deepen the cooperation between the two countries. Points on which people have different opinions would also be discussed.

According to previous information, the meeting on Thursday will take place in the port city of Thessaloniki. Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis initiated the rapprochement between the two NATO states during a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September.

The signals of détente follow several years of political ice age between the two countries. The background is, among other things, disputes over sovereign rights in the Aegean and the exploitation of raw materials such as natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean.