With a positive sign, today’s French press comments on yesterday’s visit of the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to Athens and his meeting with the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

The image of a Turkish President and a Greek Prime Minister shaking hands smiling, after an hour and a half meeting at the Maximos Palacein Athens, is not insignificant, as Le Monde newspaper points out in its article under the title “Turkey and Greece open a more peaceful ‘new chapter’ in their turbulent relations”.

“After seven years of absence and multiple tensions between Turkey and Greece, Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned to the Greek capital to sign a “declaration of friendship and good neighborliness” with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the French newspaper underlines, stressing that the Ankara strongman invited his “friend Kyriakos” to open a “new chapter”, after years of turmoil with his neighbor. “Words that would have been difficult to imagine a year ago”, the newspaper reports, recalling that in May 2022 the Turkish President had confirmed that Mr. Mitsotakis “no longer existed for him”, accusing him of trying to convince the US Congress to block the sale of F-16 planes to Turkey.

The French newspaper attributes Ankara’s turn to Greek-Turkish relations both in the help offered by Greece during the terrible earthquake that hit Turkey, and in the fact that at the international diplomatic level Erdoğan’s position improves mainly after his promise to agree to Sweden joining NATO. The newspaper also notes that Erdogan’s turn is also due to the economic situation of his country, which is more than difficult. The head of the Turkish state wishes to restart Turkey’s accession process to the European Unionin order to attract western investors again, something to which better relations with Greece could contribute, according to the French newspaper. Finally, the paper argues that Erdoğan’s visit to Athens ended on a calm notewithout however directly discussing the most sensitive issues. The delimitation of the continental shelf of the Greek islands in the Aegean Seawhich separates them, the maritime exploitation zones, the heavy Cyprus issue, remain bone of contention, which are barely touched by the leaders and their representatives, according to Monde.

The indication of the “common desire” of the Turkish President and the Greek Prime Minister for the search for solutions to the differences between the two countries, especially in immigration, the newspaper Liberation points out in an article entitled “After years of high tensions, Greece and Turkey on the road to reconciliation”, underlining that the visit of the Turkish President to Athens, in the context of the fifth Hellenic-Turkish Supreme Council of Cooperation, lasted just five hours, but it appears to have mended five years of tension between the two countries. He emphasizes the warm handshake that the two leaders exchanged on the steps of the Maximos Palace, adding that “from the creation of the modern Greek state onwards, Greek-Turkish relations have seen many phases: Periods of conflict, tension, relative calm and cooperation”but also that in certain periods of history the two neighbors really look like fraternal enemies.

He notes the desire of the Turkish President for a revision of the Treaty of Lausannewhich was signed in 1923 and which demarcates most of the borders between Greece and Turkey, adding that since then it has disputed the sea and air spaces, demanded a share in the exploitation of the Aegean and demanded the demilitarization of the Greek islands.

According to the French newspaper, today enmity has given way to friendship and as the Greek President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, said to her guest, “natural disasters have brought us closer lately. We must maintain this peaceful climate, even if our differences remain.”

Finally, Mr. Erdogan’s statement that “there is no problem that cannot be solved” between Turkey and Greece, the newspaper Figaro points out, underlining that the relations between these two historical rivals, but partners within NATO, have experienced “fluctuations, which sometimes threatened them dangerously” in recent years.

Recent years, tensions are particularly high around the delimitation of the continental shelf of the Greek islands in the Aegean Seathe maritime zones of exploitation and the migration issue, as the newspaper reports, stressing, however, that for Erdogan, who has long maintained bellicose rhetoric against Greece, a member of the European Union, the important thing is “the desire to resolve these the problems”.