Greece does not rule out a meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of a European summit in Prague this week, government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou said Wednesday, however adding that “there is yet no indication in that direction.”
The inaugural summit of the European Political Community – a brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron – will take place in the Czech capital Thursday. Speaking to reporters, Oikonomou said the Greek leader plans to raise the issue of Turkish provocations with European leaders.
The spokesman also reacted to the latest nationalist rant from Erdogan’s nationalist ally Devlet Bahceli who Tuesday said that Greece has no right to claim sovereignty over the islands of the southeastern or northern Aegean. Oikonomou slammed his comments as “ahistorical” and “baseless,” saying they mark an “escalation of [Turkey’s] provocative rhetoric.”
Furthermore, Oikonomou attacked a preliminary deal on energy exploration signed Monday between Libya’s Tripoli government and Ankara, stressing that the agreement is contested by the European Union, the United States and Libya’s eastern-based parliament. “Turkey has received nothing but disapproval and strong recommendations to put an end to its revisionist policy,” he said.
Athens considers the agreement could have implications on its sovereignty as it is based on the contested Turkish-Libyan memorandum of 2019 which delimits the two non-neighboring countries’ maritime jurisdiction areas and ignoring the fact that Greece and Egypt stand in the way geographically.