The meeting that Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in New York, as part of his presence at the UN General Assembly, ended at 19:00.
The meeting lasted one hour and took place at the “home of Turkey”, in New York. It was attended by the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs Giorgos Gerapetritis and the director of the Prime Minister’s Diplomatic Office, Anna Maria Boura, while on the Turkish side, among others, the Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and the diplomatic advisor of the President of Turkey, Akif Tsagatai Kilic, were present.
In the first minutes of the meeting in front of the cameras, the two leaders exchanged handshakes and were smiling at the front.
“We went a step further than Vilnius, but The Hague is still far away”. With this phrase, a top government source described the results of the meeting that Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In preparation for the meeting, Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis met on Monday in New York with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.
The Prime Minister’s statement:
“We had a productive discussion with President Erdogan in the presence of our Foreign Ministers and Diplomatic Advisors. We agreed to continue working to deepen the positive climate in Greek-Turkish relations, which has been established in recent months, and we clearly defined the level of contacts and meetings for the next period at the level of political dialogue, Confidence Building Measures, but also promotion of the positive agenda.
We also agreed that the next Supreme Cooperation Council will be held on December 7 in Thessaloniki. At the same time, we had the opportunity to discuss a number of common challenges facing our two countries. Let me dwell on the problem of illegal immigration, where I believe that Turkey’s cooperation is necessary in order to reduce immigration flows to a minimum.
But, of course, we also discussed the issues and major challenges of the climate crisis, as Greece and Turkey are two Mediterranean countries, which this summer too were faced with significant natural disasters, a product of global warming and the climate crisis, which he is already here with us.
I believe that this field of cooperation can also be explored further, so that it becomes the subject of some specific agreements, which will be signed within the framework of the Supreme Cooperation Council, in December in Thessaloniki.”
Turkey shifts focus to alternative projects as new US-backed trade corridor bypasses it for Greece
Colleagues of the Prime Minister before the meeting had stated to protothema.gr that they “do not expect anything shocking” from today’s meeting while referring to what Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at Sunday’s press conference at TIF.
