Greek and Turkish leaders seek to stress thawing relations but tensions remain under the surface
The leaders of Greece and Turkey have met for talks that were supposed to underline their efforts to put aside decades-old disputes but also revealed deep divisions between them
ISTANBUL — The leaders of Greece and Turkey met Monday for talks aimed at underlining their efforts to put aside decades-old disputes, but they also revealed deep divisions over the Israel-Hamas war.
Speaking at a news conference in Ankara following the two-hour face-to-face summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan jumped on comments by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in which he described Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“I do not see Hamas as a terror group, ” Erdogan said. “I see it as a group of people trying to protect their own land.” He also revealed that Turkey was currently treating “more than 1,000 Hamas members” in its hospitals.
Greece, like most Western states, considers Hamas a terrorist organization but Erdogan repeated his reference to the group as a “resistance organization.”
The leaders were meeting for the fourth time in the past year in a bid to strengthen a normalization process.
Turkey and Greece, which are NATO members, have been at odds for decades over a series of issues, including territorial claims in the Aegean Sea and drilling rights in the Mediterranean, and have come to the brink of war three times in the last half-century. A dispute over energy exploration rights in 2020 led to the two countries’ warships facing off in the Mediterranean.
They agreed last December to put their disputes aside and focus on areas where they can find consensus. The list of items on the so-called positive agenda includes trade, energy, education and cultural ties.
Since that summit in Athens, the regional rivals have
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