"I visited Ankara last year and mentioned our three main goals - to resolve cutting-edge issues and decompress tensions to prevent dangerous crises. To organise our discussion on the basis of 3 pillars: political dialogue, positive agenda and confidence building measures," Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis stressed, among others.
"Even when we do not find easy solutions, we discuss and must be aware of the need in a period of multiple crises and contribute to peace," he added.
"We had an initial and frank discussion on a critical issue. I do not claim that through dialogue the problems of the two countries have been magically solved. Tangible results have been achieved over the past 16 months. The leaders of our two countries have already met six times, the Supreme Cooperation Council was held in Athens, where the Athens Declaration was adopted, and at the same time two rounds of political dialogue and positive agenda and three rounds of confidence building measures have been held," the Greek Foreign Minister added.
He noted that the next round of discussions on the so-called positive agenda will take place in Athens on 2 and 3 December, stressing that contacts between the two countries are becoming normal, as contacts between 2 neighbouring countries should be.
On the Cyprus issue , Gerapetritis said that Greece's positions "are known".
"Let us turn our eternal neighbourhood into an eternal friendship. Relations between Turkey and Greece are developing in a positive direction. Multilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, tourism and culture is constantly strengthening. We are making efforts to understand each other on critical issues and to contribute to the well-being of our peoples with the 'I win, you win' approach established by the Mitsotakis-Erdogan meetings," the Turkish Foreign Minister said in his turn.
He called Giorgos Gerapetritis an "honourable friend", urging "to seize the historic opportunity that is open to us and turn the eternal neighbourhood into an eternal friendship".
Regarding the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean issues, Fidan said that "we must be realistic and diagnose the problems correctly".
He said that the problems are interlinked and we need to find solutions and "we cannot limit them to the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone.
"We need to discuss all the issues that may cause friction," he noted.
The minister also spoke of a "fair distribution in the Eastern Mediterranean," which he said his country supports. He also assessed that "if we act in the spirit of the Athens Declaration, we will overcome the problems", and regarding the Cyprus issue, he said that it should be discussed "based on the realities of the island".
Fidan stressed that "the federation model is no longer valid for Cyprus".
Finally, he referred to minority issues and said that he expressed the expectations "that our expatriates in Greece have", while adding that Turkey considers the protection of cultural heritage very important and that his country can help in this respect. He also said that he expected "more effective cooperation with Greece in the fight against terrorist organisations, first of all FETO, PKK and DHKP-C" because "this is beneficial for both countries".
He also said that cooperation in the fight against illegal immigration should be developed between the two countries, while stressing that "Turkey does not want war in our region". | BGNES
