The Turkish Defense Ministry on Monday hosted a delegation from Greece for a “military confidence-building measures” meeting, the fourth of its kind in years. Military officers and civilian officials attended the meeting.
It has been three years since a similar meeting was held. Defense delegations first met in 2010 in Greece and two more meetings were held in Türkiye and Athens in the following years. In the last meeting in 2020 in Athens, the sides agreed on a plan for confidence-building measures. A video conference call was held in 2021 between the sides, but tensions in the Aegean Sea apparently led to a delay in the meeting.
The delay is actually par for the course, as relations have turned from friendly to hostile, back and forth, over the decades. Türkiye and Greece, which confronted each other in the former’s War of Independence, were quick to restore relations after the foundation of the Republic of Türkiye. Yet, historic animosity between the two countries reared its ugly head again as the two failed to agree upon a number of issues, most notably, the border of their territorial waters.
It was “disaster diplomacy” that seemingly turned the tide in relations, with both countries offering condolences to each other after the Feb. 6 earthquakes in southern Türkiye and a deadly train crash in Greece. A meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis further helped relations gain momentum after a lull.
Media outlets reported that both sides agreed on “limiting” maritime exercises at the meeting. Maritime exercises in the Aegean Sea have been a source of tension between the two countries for a long time. The Sabah newspaper reported that both sides would not hold exercises in the Aegean Sea during the summer and on their national days. The defense delegations also agreed on organizing sports events between the military academies of both countries.
Defense Minister Yaşar Güler received Haris Lalacos, secretary-general of the Greek Foreign Ministry and adviser to the defense minister, who led the Greek defense delegation.
Last month, deputy foreign ministers of both countries met in Athens in another step toward warming relations.
Türkiye and Greece have often locked horns over several issues, including competing claims to jurisdiction in the Eastern Mediterranean, overlapping claims over their continental shelves, maritime boundaries, airspace, energy, the ethnically split island of Cyprus, the status of the islands in the Aegean Sea and migrants.
Tensions flared in 2020 over exploratory drilling rights in areas of the Mediterranean Sea – where Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration claim exclusive economic zones – leading to a naval standoff.
Despite saying that it has no intention of entering an arms race with Ankara, Athens has also been carrying out an ambitious rearmament program, building a military presence on the disputed Aegean islands since the 1960s in violation of postwar treaties, and also tightening its defense cooperation with the U.S.
The purchase of fighter jets from the U.S. and the upping of defense budgets are meant to counter the protection of Turkish interests in the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece says it needs to defend the islands against a potential attack from Türkiye, but Turkish officials said continued militarization of the islands could lead to Ankara questioning their ownership.
Türkiye has often warned against such moves and called instead for dialogue to resolve their disputes.
The sides have traded accusations over airspace violations, but there haven’t been any skirmishes in the past three years.
Pundits argue that despite the severity and longevity of their troubles, the lack of a hot conflict in the Aegean highlights the success of the neighbors in their mutual willingness to bury the hatchet.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has hailed a new and positive era in relations as he welcomed his Greek counterpart Giorgos Gerapetritis in Ankara in September: “Ankara and Athens have differences of opinion in the Aegean and Mediterranean. The sides now must bring a new approach to solving their problems,” Fidan told reporters after talks with Gerapetritis addressing the string of decades-old disputes between their countries.
The meeting followed a rare meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Vilnius in July, hailed as a positive milestone by both countries.
Mitsotakis and Erdoğan later met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.
