Greek foreign minister says Athens ready for talks with Türkiye to resolve sea borders dispute

Greece is ready to start talks with Türkiye to resolve a long-standing dispute over maritime borders that has repeatedly brought the two neighbours to the brink of armed conflict, Greece’s newly appointed foreign minister said on July 4.

Giorgos Gerapetritis said the Greek government wants to “take advantage of the ongoing positive climate” in order to come to an agreement on delineating the areas in which each country has exclusive economic rights, including the right to search for offshore oil and gas, ABC News reports.

Türkiye disputes areas which Greece says fall within its own economic zone and where it’s seeking to start a search for offshore oil and gas reserves. Türkiye claims much of the economic zone of Cyprus where several sizeable offshore natural gas deposits have been discovered. 

The feud over exploratory drilling rights had culminated in a naval standoff three years ago.

Another key issue at the heart of Greek-Turkish tensions that Gerapetritis wants resolved is the extent of the continental shelf — and by extension, Greek sovereign territory — of Greek islands near Türkiye’s coastline in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.

Türkiye doesn’t recognise that Greek islands off its borders have a continental shelf, while Greece insists that position is in contravention of international law.

“All that remains is to determine whether Türkiye also sincerely wishes to forge a path of rapprochement, without this meaning that Greece will go back on its red lines or its national priorities,” Gerapetritis said after talks with his Cypriot counterpart, Constantinos Kombos.

Gerapetritis said at the top of those priorities is an agreement to reunify ethnically divided Cyprus as a federation made up of Greek and Turkish speaking sectors in line with United Nations resolutions.