President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Ankara Tuesday to discuss bilateral relations as well as regional issues.
Erdoğan and Tsipras exchanged views on several issues that concern both countries, from the refugee crisis to the Cyprus issue.
Relations between Ankara and Athens were expected to be comprehensively reviewed during Tsipras' visit that took place at the invitation of Erdoğan, a statement released on Monday by Turkey's presidential press office said ahead of the meeting.
The two countries had expressed their willingness to open a new page in bilateral relations during Erdoğan's historic visit to Athens in December 2017, which was the first in 65 years at the presidential level.
"The conditions must be created in Greek-Turkish relations for historic steps to take place," Tsipras said in an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday regarding the meeting.
Tsipras is snow cheduled to visit Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul Wednesday.
He is also expected to be the first Greek leader to visit the Halki Seminary, a former Christian Orthodox school located on one of Istanbul's Princes' Islands.
Tsipras also said that his relationship with Erdoğan is based on "respect, honesty and directness" although it was "challenged in very difficult moments."
"But it allowed us to consolidate channels of communication on many levels, to overcome obstacles and to be able, today, to speak of a positive agenda," he told AA.
"During my visit I believe we will have the chance to continue the difficult, but frank dialogue we started in December 2017 and to pick up our positive agenda from where we left it," he added, recalling the Turkish president's visit to Athens.
In the interview, Tsipras called on the European Union to support Turkey as it hosts 4 million refugees.
"I believe that Turkey has taken over the great burden of hosting 4 million refugees. That should always be recognized by the international community and the EU should do all it can to support our neighbor," Tsipras said.
The refugee deal was signed between Turkey and EU in 2016 to find a solution to the influx of refugees heading to the union. The agreement foresees that in exchange for Turkey stemming the refugee flow to Europe, the EU would pay Turkey 6 billion euros in financial aid. The agreement also envisages acceleration in Turkey's EU accession talks and visa-free travel for its citizens.
The EU had fully paid its first 3-billion-euro tranche for 2016-17 and promised to pay the second tranche by the end of 2018. Although Turkey did its part taking great responsibility, the EU has failed to hold up its end of the agreement – not paying the promised amount. The EU has also been delaying implementing visa-free travel for Turkish citizens for two years since the deal came into effect.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of migrants flee from civil conflict or economic hardship in their home countries in hope of reaching Europe. In December 2018, Turkish security forces stated that they apprehended more than 59,675 irregular migrants in Edirne province, one of the prime migrant routes, on the border with Greece and Bulgaria in the first 10 months of 2018.
Greek authorities said over 14,000 "irregular entries" have been recorded across the Turkish border in 2018, a high number compared to 5,500 in 2017.
In recent years Erdoğan has suggested that the seminary could be reopened if steps are taken by Athens to improve conditions for the Muslim community in Western Thrace, an area of Greece with a large Turkish Muslim population.
Tsipras also discussed developments regarding the Muslim Turkish minority's religious freedom in Greece, an issue which was raised by Erdoğan during his 2017 visit to Greece and remains to be one of the critical points in relations.
"The Treaty of Lausanne is the applicable international convention regarding minorities, so we inform each other on relevant developments on this basis," Tsipras said, branding the issue as an internal one rather than bilateral.
Tsipras said "important steps" had been taken to implement local governance, "the structure and function of the mufti offices and educational issues."
"We will continue in this direction," he said.
The election of religious leaders or muftis has been a key problem of Greece's Muslim Turkish minority of some 150,000, concentrated in the Western Thrace region, since 1991.
The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne guarantees the religious freedom of the Muslim minority in Greece. However, Greece annulled the Greek Act in 1991 and started appointing the muftis itself.
Cyprus is another issue between the two countries that is waiting to be solved and was expected to be discussed by the two leaders. Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when a Greek Cypriot coup was followed by violence against the island's Turks and Ankara's intervention as a guarantor power. It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including the latest initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Turkey, Greece and the U.K. collapsing in 2017.
There is also a dispute over sharing gas fields in the Mediterranean. Turkey has consistently contested the Greek Cypriot Administration's unilateral drilling activity in the Eastern Mediterranean, saying Turkish Cypriots also have rights to the resources in the area.
