Better relations with neighboring Türkiye could help the U.N. revive talks between Cyprus’ divided communities, Greece said on Monday, a day ahead of a meeting between the Turkish and Greek leaders in New York on Tuesday.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Tayyip Erdoğan, who last met on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington in July, will hold discussions at the United Nations General Assembly, the latest in a series of meetings since the two sides agreed to reboot their relations last year.

Neighbors Greece and Türkiye, both NATO allies but historic foes, have been at odds for decades over a range of issues from airspace to maritime jurisdiction in the Eastern Mediterranean and ethnically split Cyprus.

"We have encountered some setbacks in the past, but the truth is that there is a strong political will to actually moderate the consequences of our disputes and to establish some de-escalation mechanisms at the ministerial level," Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said.

Tensions have eased in recent years and the longstanding sparring partners have pledged to keep open channels of communication, seek military confidence-building measures to eliminate sources of tension and work on the issues that have kept them apart.

They have also looked to work more closely on areas of mutual interest such as trade, tourism, health and migration.

"I could say in a nutshell that our relationship now has improved significantly, and we have established some mutual sincerity in things," Gerapetritis said.

Aegean skirmish

Ankara too says it is committed to maintaining the positive climate but the process is still proving to be turbulent, especially in the Aegean Sea, where Turkish and Greek jets often scuffled until very recently and civilian boats can get mixed up in border skirmishes.

Reports surfaced on Sunday that the Greek coast guard a week earlier had ventured into Türkiye’s territorial waters to chase a boat off the coast of Muğla province. Footage showed the boat's driver abandoning the boat and a Greek soldier boarding it before sailing away with it back to Greece.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told Greek Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy Christos Stylianides that Türkiye was unhappy with the Greek coast guard’s violation of Turkish territorial waters, Yerlikaya’s office said Monday.

"Such violations are unacceptable to preserve good neighborly relations," Yerlikaya said in a phone call.

Stylianides said the incident was not political and assured such violations would not be repeated. He said an investigation was underway and Turkish authorities would be informed.

The Greek coast guard often harasses in the same manner Turkish boats fishing in international waters of the Aegean Sea. It is also notorious for a similar and often harsher treatment of asylum-seekers in the Aegean.

Cyprus issue

The United Nations has been trying to find common ground for the resumption of long-stalled negotiations between rival Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities in a conflict spanning decades.

Gerapetritis said that the situation remained "intolerable" but that he was moderately optimistic that discussions could resume soon at the U.N. level.

"Obviously, the improvement in the Greek-Turkish relationship clearly provides a fertile ground for this," he said.

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Ersin Tatar is also in New York to secure support for ending his country’s international isolation, which follows a six-month assessment by Angela Holguin, the U.N. chief’s personal representative, who recently concluded a fact-finding mission to the island.

The TRNC has been internationally isolated since declaring independence from the Greek Cypriot administration in the south in 1983 after Türkiye's 1974 military intervention to protect Turkish Cypriots from a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece's annexation of the island.

The Greek Cypriot administration was admitted to the European Union in 2004, the same year they thwarted a U.N. plan to end the longstanding dispute. Turkish Cypriots decry a U.N. and EU embargo on the TRNC and the forced federation-based system on the island. Both the TRNC and Türkiye insist on a two-state solution.

Erdoğan himself is expected to urge the international community to recognize the TRNC in his U.N. speech on Tuesday.