The fifth meeting between Erdogan and Mitsotakis since the near-simultaneous 2023 elections in Turkey and Greece took place in Washington D.C. in a NATO context.
That’s pretty much one meeting every three months!
Barring unforeseen events, two more meetings are set to follow in the months ahead. In September in New York, and then again in December in Ankara with the High Cooperation Council.
This regular communication is undoubtedly positive. Not only because it ensures “calm waters” in the region. But because, as a matter of principle, it is better for two neighbouring countries to talk than it is for them not to talk.
The road from “Mitsotakis no longer exists for me!” will be a long one, but it wasn’t the Greek side that did the about-face, and at least we won’t be spending the summer chasing each other around the Aegean.
Is anything resolved? Of course not. And it won’t be any time soon, despite the fist pumps of those who believe international relations are all about noble intentions or legal formulae.
They aren’t. Greece and Turkey have deep-seated differences as well as radically differing views on how these differences should be approached, and only the truly naive could think they’ll be resolved simply by adding “a little water to their wine”. The most likely outcome is that no one will want to drink the wine, once they’ve done watering it down!
But communication is necessary. And saying “Erdogan’s a pirate” or “Mitsotakis is a traitor” isn’t communication. Whether he’s a pirate or a ship’s captain, Erdogan is still the legitimate leader of our eastern neighbour. And which of the two he is won’t change simply because Greek patriotic sentiments wants it to.
So the issue here isn’t about solving problems that can’t be solved. It’s about not getting bogged down in insoluble problems that could easily spin out of control.
Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the coup against Makarios that paved the way for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus (15 July 1974). Which is all the historical proof anyone could need of how easily a long-term problem that’s been simmering away for decades can boil over into open crisis when the reins of power fall into the hands of fanatics who have no idea what they’re doing, or fools who do.
Needless to say, the invasion remains an open wound. And no wound has ever healed until the factors that keep it bleeding have been dealt with.
So, obviously, we don’t expect Erdogan and Mitsotakis to settle accounts that go back multiple decades. But we do expect them to talk. So that they can achieve—even in the fraught waters of Greek-Turkish relations—that most excellent thing we call ‘normality’.
