At 2 PM today, Tuesday (September 23), local New York time (9 PM Greece time), Kyriakos Mitsotakis will meet with Tayyip Erdogan in a futuristic skyscraper across from the United Nations building, specifically at the “Turkish House,” with government sources noting that last September the meeting took place at the UN in a venue suggested by the Greek side.
The official briefing is concise and general: “Bilateral and regional issues will be discussed.” Present at the meeting – in a “1+2” format – will be the two Foreign Ministers, Giorgos Gerapetritis and Hakan Fidan, and the diplomatic advisors to both leaders, Miltiades Nikolaidis and Chagatay Kilits.
The seventh meeting between Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Tayyip Erdogan in less than two and a half years, something unprecedented in the history of the two countries, shows the apparent willingness from both sides for regular tension de-escalation, further normalization of relations, and maintaining relative calm. Previous meetings took place in Vilnius, New York, Athens, Ankara, Washington, and New York.
The different starting point compared to previous Mitsotakis-Erdogan meetings – Athens’ message
Today’s meeting, however, begins from a different starting point: Ankara’s attempt to ratify the illegal Turkish-Libyan memorandum, the provocative stance on the Greece-Cyprus electrical interconnection issue, and inflammatory statements by government officials have disturbed the so-called “calm waters.” The Piri Reis ultimately did not enter the Aegean last week, but the climate in bilateral relations is no longer what we observed during 2023 and 2024.
For its part, the Greek government has clearly shown its intentions. “Greece will never discuss disarmament issues, nor obviously ‘gray zones’ issues, nor sovereignty issues,” was the message the Prime Minister sent in his recent television interview, who nevertheless wants to keep communication channels open with Ankara at the highest level.
He also wants to maintain the benefits from the so-called calm waters policy, which are mainly the arrival of tourists from Turkish coasts to the Eastern Aegean islands with express visas, the reduction of migration flows, and the limitation of overflights and violations of national airspace.
The SAFE veto
It is also clear that Greece, along with the olive branch, is wielding the threat of a veto against the European defense program SAFE. As Kyriakos Mitsotakis has stated, “as long as the casus belli remains on the table and as long as Turkey displays revisionism in other fields that is detrimental to Greece, Greece will block participation in the SAFE program, as it has the ability to do.” Regarding the Turkish-Libyan memorandum, he left a clear barb through his customary Sunday Facebook review. Referring to the initiation of the process for delimiting the Exclusive Economic Zone between Greece and Libya, Kyriakos Mitsotakis noted that “the path to broader regional stability passes through agreements of genuinely neighboring countries, based on International Law, and not through arbitrary and baseless memoranda.”
“This government has chosen to essentially ‘elevate’ Greece with policies that produce results, has chosen dialogue even with the neighboring country, with Turkey, and not a confrontational logic of false patriotism that ‘diminishes’ Greece, ‘contains’ it, and has chosen, continuing what previous governments have done, not to even put sovereignty issues, red line issues up for discussion. So, these are the principles according to which we approach every such discussion,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis characteristically stated during the briefing of political editors.
Within the framework of the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly, the High-Level General Debate – also known as High-Level Week 2025 – will begin today, September 23, and will conclude on September 29. The Greek Prime Minister arrives in the US today and will stay until Friday, September 26, the day he will deliver his speech at the United Nations.
“My assessment is that the Prime Minister will raise two issues with him. One is Turkey’s intention to participate in the SAFE program, the 150 billion euros, where Greece has explicitly said that a country that threatens a European country with war cannot enter a European defense program and has called on Turkey to lift the casus belli. And the second issue is the involvement that has occurred with Turkey around the cable,” was the position expressed by Angelos Syrrigos, ND MP and professor of international relations.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ program in New York
Today, Kyriakos Mitsotakis will also participate in the reception hosted in New York in honor of the leaders by US President Donald Trump, while earlier he will have separate meetings with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, Yemen President Rashad al-Alimi, and Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio. Certainly, the meeting with Mr. Christodoulides has special significance, as among other things, the optimal possible solution for proceeding with the electrical interconnection of the two countries via underwater cable will now be discussed at the highest level.
