Mitsotakis – Erdogan meeting: Open communication on migration

The migration issue, moreover, is “burning” the government, as the flows are increased in several places, especially in the southern Aegean and Crete, as the Turkish military police are demonstrating a more… relaxed approach in some parts of the coast.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis emphasized to Recep Tayyip Erdogan the importance of deepening Greek-Turkish cooperation to effectively curb migration flows. Currently, a “red phone” line exists between the Turkish Coast Guard and the Greek Coast Guard, facilitating direct communication. Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya and Greek Maritime Minister Christos Stylianides have also held multiple discussions and meetings.

To further improve cooperation, a postponed meeting between Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos and Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya is expected to take place in the near future, possibly in October.

Of course, a critical issue is also Turkey starting to accept migrant returns provided for under the 2016 Joint Statement. On the evidence so far, however, the Turkish commitment behind the scenes to even greater stemming of the flows seems stronger. “We want the boats to stop before they hit the water. Of course, cooperation with the Turkish authorities is important, we have made progress in the last year to have better communication channels. We don’t want to leave it to the smugglers to decide who gets into Europe,” Mitsotakis stressed, speaking to CNN.

Maritime zones

In any case, the maritime zones debate looks as far away today as it did yesterday, before the Mitsotakis-Erdoğan meeting. The two leaders reaffirmed the instruction to the two foreign ministers, Giorgos Gerapetritis and Hakhan Fidan, who will meet in Athens in October or November, to plan the next steps in the political dialogue. The political and substantive environment, however, does not seem conducive.

Of course, in the aftermath of the meeting, of interest is the statement by a senior government source that “holding” is the point about the delimitation of maritime jurisdictions based on international law. Of course, Erdogan’s positioning in an international forum remains to be proven in practice.

There is a clear divergence between Greece and Turkey on the Cyprus issue. Kyriakos Mitsotakis firmly emphasized the need to resume discussions based on a bizonal, bicommunal federation. He proposed starting with a new trilateral meeting involving the President of Cyprus, the “pseudo-prime minister” Ersin Tatar, and the UN Secretary-General.