Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said late on Thursday that it expects “Greece to support NATO’s initiative under which two countries will start technical talks on the Eastern Mediterranean.” Ankara adds that “Turkey ready for dialogue with Greece without preconditions to find permanent solutions to all issues.”
Thursday afternoon, Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg said that Turkey and Greece agreed to enter into technical talks at NATO to reduce the risk of incidents and accidents in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, Greece dismissed Stoltenberg’s claim that it had agreed to start technical talks with Turkey.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that “these de-confliction-oriented talks are not related to the resolution of bilateral issues between Greece and Turkey, but they are related to arrangements that were previously discussed in bilateral level between the military authorities of the two countries.”
The ministry added that Turkey is ready for dialogue with Greece without preconditions in order to find permanent solutions to all issues in a fair manner under international law.
Athens reiterated earlier that there cannot be any dialogue with Ankara before the withdrawal of its ships from the Greek continental shelf.
