Next month’s Greece-Turkey high-level cooperation council meeting in Athens – the first in seven years – is viewed as a step, albeit timid, towards normalizing relations, sources in the Greek capital said on Friday.
The meeting is set for Dec. 7, and will also coincide with the arrival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Athens for a working visit.
The same sources said the convening of the council, which is composed of ministers of either country, comes after the conclusion of a first round of bilateral contacts, held within a “road map” framework recently agreed to by both countries’ foreign ministers.
“The aim is to establish calm and to improve bilateral relations…with agreements that benefit both countries. The disagreements remain, but the goal is that disagreements should not generate bilateral crises,” the state-run ANA-MPA quoted sources as saying.
The latest program scheduled has the Greek and Turkish ministers of defense, migration, culture, tourism, economic affairs and education participating, along with the ministers of foreign affairs.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is set to welcome Erdogan to his Maximos Mansion office while as the council’s meetings take place at other venues. A joint press conference is scheduled afterwards, while the two leaders will then jointly chair a meeting of the full high-level cooperation council during a working lunch at the same government house.
