Türkiye and Greece have step by step accomplished a "certain of level trust," with open channels of communication to prevent crises, according to Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis.

In the past 15 months since Turkish and Greek leaders President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis decided to revive dialogue to put long-strained bilateral relations on a different trajectory, cooperation on migration, civil protection and a positive agenda has yielded tangible results, Gerapetritis told Greek daily Kathimerini on Sunday.

"This climate confirms our desire to contribute to establishing a sense of calm and security in our neighborhood, which, let’s not forget, is caught in the middle of two wars," Gerapetritis said.

Maritime dispute

The Greek diplomat and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan have been tasked by Erdoğan and Mitsotakis last month with exploring whether the conditions are in place to proceed with "a substantial discussion" on the delineation of continental shelves and the exclusive economic zone, top two issues that have troubled the neighbors in the Aegean Sea for decades.

An agreement on where their maritime zones begin and end is important for determining rights over possible gas reserves and power infrastructure schemes.

Tensions have eased in recent years and both countries agreed last year to reboot their relations, pledging to keep open channels of communication and work on the issues that have kept them apart.

According to Gerapetritis, the prerequisites are linked to the content of the discussion, "which may only concern the general principles that will be applied for the delimitation," namely the full application of international law, as well as the timeline and form of dialogue.

He claimed there could be a recourse to international arbitration, which would be "the end point of this process based on a memorandum of understanding."

"I will have the opportunity to discuss these matters with the Turkish minister of foreign affairs during his visit to Athens, likely in November," Gerapetritis said.

He added that the discussion would not involve the question of territorial waters, something that escalated tensions in the past.

Türkiye and Greece came close to blows in 2020 when Athens sought to expand its territorial claim from 6 nautical miles to 12 nautical miles, coinciding with Türkiye's exploration of the seabed for energy reserves.

Ankara at the time deployed naval and air forces into the region to which Athens responded by urging the EU to impose sanctions but several members, including Spain, Hungary and Italy were opposed to the idea.

Greece argues the nautical extension is its sovereign and inalienable right, which Ankara wholly rejects.

Gerapetritis said a convergence on the framework of delineation could encourage Erdoğan and Mitsotakis to order in-depth talks to begin at the high-level cooperation council meeting in Ankara in January.

"If there is no confluence, we will strive to maintain the relatively good climate," he noted.

Exploratory talks

With respect to exploratory talks, progress requires action, according to the Greek minister.

Greece has no intention of going to round 65 in exploratory talks, he said.

"After 21 years and 64 rounds of exploratory talks, we have not succeeded in reaching a point where we can initiate a discussion with Türkiye, not even on the procedure, let alone on the substance," he said.

"What has unfortunately emerged is that we often found ourselves in a worse position at the end of each round than we were at the start. History has shown us that when it comes to complex foreign policy issues, inaction is usually detrimental. Only action produces momentum."

Bilateral dialogue for resolving the maritime dispute has been largely frozen as neither side is willing to budge on their terms.

Türkiye, which has the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, rejects the maritime boundary claims of Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, arguing their excessive claims violate the sovereign rights of both Türkiye and the Turkish Cypriots in the region.

Gerapetritis said Greece doesn’t expect Türkiye to renounce its basic position overnight, which he said would be "naïve," citing the Athens Declaration for Friendship and Good-Neighborly Relations, which was signed by the two leaders in December 2023, which explicitly states that the two sides do not resign from their basic legal positions.

"The difference is that the Greek positions are based entirely on international law, especially the Law of the Sea," Gerapetritis claimed, insisting: "Greece has never recognized and will never recognize Turkish claims such as those arising from the illegal and baseless Turkish-Libyan memorandum."

East Mediterranean

Türkiye and Libya signed a maritime boundaries deal in 2019 which secured Turkish rights over a portion of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The sides also signed a hydrocarbon drilling agreement in October 2022, for the exploration of hydrocarbons in Libya’s exclusive economic zone and the mainland by Türkiye.

It was a preemptive action against potential deals between Greece and Egypt, and Greece and the Greek Cypriots in the divided island of Cyprus whose northern part is controlled by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

The dispute over the waters dividing the neighbors arose again this spring between Türkiye and Greece when Athens announced that it would build two marine parks in the Aegean and Ionian Seas by the end of 2024, despite objections by Türkiye.

The plan for the park in the Aegean has irked Ankara, which has accused Athens of exploiting environmental issues to push a geopolitical agenda. Greece’s Foreign Ministry retorted that Ankara was "politicizing a clearly environmental issue."

Gerapetritis said the marine parks would go ahead as originally planned, dictated "purely by environmental, not geopolitical agenda."

A Turkish official speaking to Daily Sabah in May hinted that Türkiye may map out its own marine parks in the region in apparent retaliation. The official has stated that Greece did not consult with Türkiye on the matter and sought to impose its fait accompli.

Any normalization of relations would ease tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean and contribute to regional stability.

On the Cyprus issue, the Greek minister welcomed the informal meeting planned this month between U.N. chief Antonio Guterres, TRNC President Ersin Tatar and Greek Cypriot administration leader Nikos Christodoulides.

"The fact that there has been an improvement in Greek-Turkish relations has admittedly created better conditions for a resumption of talks," he said.