ATHENS: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Brussels on June 14, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu have announced.
The announcement was made on Monday afternoon after the two ministers had held joint talks in Athens.
The meeting would be an important step in normalising communication between the two quarrelling neighbouring states, they said.
Erdogan and Mitsotakis have met only once since the Greek premier took office in the summer of 2019 - also on the sidelines of a Nato meeting. Since then, tensions between the countries have increased.
Mitsotakis had earlier Monday received Cavusoglu in a warm and relaxed atmosphere.
The tone during the meeting, which lasted almost an hour, was very good, according to government sources in Athens.
Afterwards, Dendias and Cavusoglu walked along closed-off, deserted main streets in the centre of Athens to the Foreign Ministry to continue the talks.
Cavusoglu tweeted after the meeting: "Reviving our dialogue channels is a positive step. Improving our relations is important to resolve our differences."
"We are fully aware that our views are very different - on particularly important issues, of all things, our opinions are even diametrically opposed," Dendias said after the meeting, adding that they wanted to normalize the situation.
The two have agreed on a 25-point plan to strengthen economic cooperation, Dendias said.
The two countries also plan to recognise each other's vaccination certificates to facilitate tourism, he added.
Cavusoglu said political and military dialogue would continue and that another round of talks between experts from the two countries was planned, the third to be held this year.
In the past, the meetings, held behind closed doors, have helped ease tensions between the two countries when relations have threatened to deteriorate.
Turkey and Greece have been working more intensively since the beginning of the year to maintain the discussion thread despite massive conflicts between the two countries.
In April, Cavusoglu received the Greek foreign minister in Ankara; however, there was a scandal at the time when the two politicians accused each other of misconduct in front of the cameras in central conflicts such as the dispute over natural gas supplies in the Mediterranean and migration policy.
Last year, the neighbouring states were even on the verge of a military confrontation over the natural gas conflict. - dpa
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