When the guest from Athens had finished his speech, just as the press conference was supposed to be over, the Turkish president wanted to say something else. “My dear friend,” says Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, he still has to contradict one “important point”: “Hamas is not a terrorist organization,” no, it is “people who are trying to… to protect the people”. According to Erdoğan, more than 1,000 of its members are currently receiving medical treatment in Turkey.
It is well known that Erdoğan is capable of surprises when he meets Western politicians about the war in Gaza – Chancellor Scholz also experienced this when Erdoğan came to Berlin last year. At that time, it was a question from a German journalist that provoked the Turkish president. As a precaution, it was not planned for the press to ask questions during the Greek Prime Minister’s visit to Ankara. Mitsotakis also probably agreed with this. But Erdoğan apparently wanted to clarify once again how he thinks about Gaza.
Just the day before, he had once again compared Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, with Adolf Hitler – in an interview with the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. Turkey recently halted its trade with the Jewish state. Now, on Monday evening, as he stood next to the Greek head of government in the presidential palace, Erdoğan spoke, as usual, of the “genocide” in Gaza, which he condemned “in the name of my Palestinian brothers.”
Both played for a long time with nationalist feelings in their countries
It should be a friendly visit. Erdoğan and Mitsotakis are trying to improve relations between their countries. It was only in December that Erdoğan traveled to Athens and spoke of wanting to open “a new page” in relations with Greece. Erdoğan used to sound different, not long ago when he announced that Mitsotakis no longer existed for him. He “never” wants to talk to him again. For a long time, Mitsotakis also found strong words when it came to Turkey, especially when it came to migration. Mitsotakis repeatedly said that he would not let Erdoğan “blackmail” him with refugees.
For a long time both played with the nationalist feelings of their voters. In his first years in office, Mitsotakis took advantage of the anti-Turkish sentiment in Greece to profile himself as a tough opponent of Erdoğan; In Turkey, on the other hand, the dream of the “blue fatherland”, i.e. the Aegean, still exists today. One feels deprived of access to the sea by the Greek islands along the Turkish coast. One of Erdoğan’s rhetorical remarks was that the islands that used to belong to the Ottoman Empire could be conquered “one night.”
The Greeks are upset because a Byzantine church has just become a mosque
In the summer of 2020, many in Greece believed that a war with Turkey was imminent, when Erdoğan had a drill ship search for gas near Rhodes, escorted by naval ships. The Greek Navy also left at that time. And the last conflict was just a few days ago: Istanbul’s Chora Church celebrated its reopening, a building from the Byzantine period, like Hagia Sophia in the Ottoman Empire, converted into a mosque – but after its end into a museum. The church was recently renovated and Muslims have been praying there again since last week. Unsurprisingly, the Greek press reacted with outrage; in Greece people pay a lot of attention to what happens to the churches that bear witness to how many Greeks used to live in Istanbul.
Mitsotakis also criticized the move, but he still flew to Ankara on Monday. After all, the aim should be to ensure that the Greek-Turkish Spring, announced in Athens in December, lasts. Erdoğan told the press that evening that they wanted to increase the trade volume between the countries to ten billion dollars, which would almost double it. People help each other in natural disasters, forest fires or earthquakes.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis thanked “dear Tayyip” for his hospitality. He mentioned that Turkish citizens can now easily travel to ten Greek islands, while they still have to apply for visas for the rest of the Schengen area, which is an emotive issue in Turkey. “Our peoples can meet each other like this,” said Mitsotakis. The Greek saw “positive developments” everywhere.
He only looked surprised when Erdoğan finally defended Hamas. The only response Mitsotakis could think of was that we had to agree to disagree. “And that we need a ceasefire.” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also had no objection to this.