Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will be meeting with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of UN General Assembly at the Organization’s building, on Tuesday. The meeting will be brief, though important issues, such as the immigration crisis, are expected to be discussed.
According to government officials they will initially outline the next steps in the dialogue on Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs), political dialogue, and the positive agenda, which are to be completed by the end of 2024. They will also set a date for the High-Level Cooperation Council, expected to take place in Ankara at the beginning of the coming year.
However, the burning immigration issue will be high on the agenda of discussion as it is a priority for both countries, according to diplomatic sources. The same sources explain that collaboration between the two counties needs to step up, as the ongoing crisis in Asia and Africa is expected to increase the following months, thus accelerating the inflow of immigrants towards the EU.
Additionally, it is almost certain that Mitsotakis will raise the Cypriot issue with the Turkish president. Sentiment in New York is that despite Erdogan’s seemingly rigid stance on the matter, ongoing pressure on behalf of the Secretary-General of the UN towards all parties during the last two years will lead the Turkish-Cypriot side to the discussion table.
It should be noted that the Greek PM will meet with António Guterres to discuss the UN’s initiative for restarting talks, with Athens emphasizing to all parties that any solution must be based on the Security Council’s resolutions.
However, it is questionable whether the two parties will tackle other challenging issues of the Greek-Turkish dialogue, such as the settlement of the maritime zone, with a senior government source noting ‘We will assess the facts after the meeting and determine the depth of the issues we can delve into.’
