Greece’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexandra Papadopoulou arrived in Ankara this week, where she will meet with her Turkish counterpart Burak Akçapar within the framework of the Greek-Turkish Political Dialogue, a process ostensibly aimed at finding common ground on so-called low-friction issues.
This is the first meeting of a scheduled three in the context of the second round of talks between the two NATO members, agreed upon in Athens Dec. 7, with the signing of the Athens Declaration on Relations of Friendship and Good Neighborliness between PM Mitsotakis and Turkish President Erdoğan, during the latter’s one-day visit to Athens.
Next up is the sixth “positive agenda” meeting between Deputy Foreign Ministers Kostas Fragogiannis and Burak Akçapar, expected to take place in Istanbul on April 15, followed by political-military confidence building measures on April 22, to be discussed in Athens between Burak Akçapar and Amb. Theocharis Lalakos.
During the first round of political dialogue held in October in Athens delegations touched on bilateral relations as well as international and regional issues. The second meeting in Ankara on Tuesday is also expected to broach similar topics.
Within the context of the “Positive Agenda” between Greece and Turkey, a total of five meetings have taken place, with the most recent one in Athens last October, between Fragogiannis and Akçapar. Previous meetings were held in Kavala (May 29, 2021), Antalya (June 16, 2021), Athens (February 21, 2022), and Ankara (March 22, 2023).
During the 5th Round of Greek-Turkish talks within the framework of the Positive Agenda, the two sides reaffirmed their common goal to produce concrete results for the 5th High-Level Cooperation Council (HLCC), which will take place on December 7, 2023, in Thessaloniki, on issues related to the Positive Agenda. These issues include entrepreneurship, tourism, transportation, energy, sciences, technology, agriculture, environment, social security & health, youth, education and sports.
