Greece’s main opposition parties sharply criticized the government on Thursday, saying Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ recent meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed to produce a coherent strategy for addressing Ankara’s provocations in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.
The session on Wednesday in Ankara, part of the sixth High Council for Cooperation meeting, aimed to advance economic collaboration, migration management, and confidence-building measures, even as deep-rooted disputes over maritime borders and Cyprus persist.
PASOK’s shadow foreign affairs minister, Dimitris Mantzos, said Ankara’s “provocative actions” – including open-ended navigation rights claims and objections to Greek naval exercises – limited bilateral rapprochement to crisis management. He reiterated Athens’ position that the sole issue open to negotiation concerns the delimitation of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.
“The Greece-Turkey dialogue must continue, without illusions, with realism and full awareness of the other side’s positions,” Mantzos said, urging Athens to adopt a broader strategy incorporating regional intelligence and analysis across the Middle East and North Africa.
Leftist SYRIZA echoed the criticism, accusing the center-right government of lacking a “coherent strategy” and clear red lines. It noted that Mitsotakis publicly raised the issue of lifting Turkey’s casus belli – a threat of war should Greece extend territorial waters – but did not address Ankara’s objections to an electricity interconnection project linking Greece and Cyprus, nor Turkey’s suspension of its migration agreement with the European Union.
SYRIZA also called for a defined plan to bring Greek-Turkish disputes to the International Court of Justice at The Hague, warning that leaving such matters unresolved allowed Turkey to exploit timing and geopolitical conditions for repeated provocations.
Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis acknowledged on state broadcaster ERT that no breakthroughs were achieved in Ankara, but suggested Erdogan’s reference to the International Court of Justice could indicate a potential shift. He emphasized that Greece’s position on the casus belli was clear, arguing that a country cannot participate in European defense structures while threatening a member state with war.
Despite these tensions, the Ankara meeting produced incremental progress in economic and sectoral cooperation. Leaders outlined a goal to raise bilateral trade to $10 billion by 2030 and signed agreements covering investment under the Black Sea Economic Cooperation framework, tourism through a Thessaloniki-Izmir ferry link, and collaboration in science, technology, culture, and earthquake response. Visa facilitation for Turkish tourists on 12 Greek islands was also extended.
The presence of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at a state dinner underscored the symbolic role of religious diplomacy in the dialogue. On Cyprus, Mitsotakis said initiatives by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres offered a “window of opportunity” to restart negotiations, while both leaders invoked the legacies of Eleftherios Venizelos and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to frame a narrative emphasizing geography as an asset rather than a source of perpetual conflict.
Migration cooperation was highlighted after a recent shipwreck near Chios claimed 15 lives. Both countries reported a 60% reduction in illegal crossings, reflecting strengthened coordination between their coast guards.
As NATO allies, Greece and Turkey reaffirmed their commitment to joint security ahead of the Ankara Summit in July 2026, underscoring the strategic significance of their cooperation amid the Ukraine war and broader regional instability.
While concrete resolution of maritime disputes remains elusive, analysts note that the structured dialogue established by the Athens Declaration of December 2023 has created a framework for managed engagement, with economic and security collaboration serving as the primary stabilizing mechanism.