ATHENS – Tensions have been ratcheted down during a rapprochement, but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece and Turkey still aren’t close to resolving disputes over the seas and other issues that drove the trouble.

He wants differences settled at the International Court of Justice at The Hague in The Netherlands but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hasn’t committed to doing that yet.

The two met on the sidelines of the United Nations Annual General Assembly opening in New York, resuming talking after Erdogan said he wouldn’t when Mitsotakis in May, 2022 addressed the U.S. Congress and asked lawmakers to block President Joe Biden’s play to sell Turkey more F-16s.

Talking to reporters at the 87th Thessaloniki International Forum (TIF) Mitsotakis noted that communication channels have reopened, as would restoration of so-called Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) talks.

“Greece has not changed its strategy towards Turkey. My intention was to talk with Turkey and for our issues to be resolved based on international law. When we disagree, things should not be taken to extremes,” he pointed out.

There are some obstacles that seem intractable, however, on both sides, including Greece’s rejection of Turkish demands to remove troops off Aegean islands near Turkey’s coast, which Mitsotakis said won’t happen.

He said any issues involving sovereignty won’t be put on the table, although that’s what Erdogan especially wants, leaving it open whether the two sides will ever come close to a solution over differences despite the easing of tensions.

“Turkey has an interest in approaching the West, and the route to Europe goes through having good relations with Greece. This is a weapon we have in our hands for the normalization of Greek-Turkish relations. Let’s not expect for issues from the past to be resolved overnight, but let’s agree that when we disagree, things shouldn’t lead to extreme rhetoric,” he noted.

Erdogan also wants improvements in the prospects of Turkey getting into the European Union, which have worsened under his hardline rule that has seen journalists jailed and opponents harassed.

Asked whether Greece would make concessions to get talks rolling, Mitsotakis largely dodged the question and said that neither side in negotiations can expect to get everything it wants.

He made it clear that the issues he is discussing with Turkey “are nothing more than the delimitation of the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) and the Continental Shelf. We are not to discuss issues of national sovereignty, the status of the islands of the eastern Aegean, and the rights that derive from the exercise of sovereignty over the islands.”

He added that, “even if we cannot agree, this does not oblige us to be permanently on edge, like the tensions we experienced in the last four years,” during which Erdogan threatened to invade Greece in the middle of the night.

Mitsotakis also said that, the “issues of territorial integrity and national sovereignty will never be on the table for me,” he said. “The issues concerning the islands in the Eastern Aegean are not issues I will discuss with Turkey,” he noted.

And Erdogan Said….

Responding to PBS journalist Amna Nawaz’s comment that some of the reservations against the F-16s sale is that they could be used against Greece, Erdogan said, “our friendship with Greece is not what they make it out to be… We are friends with Greece for many decades. We have never been [in] fighting camps against one another.”

He didn’t explain the contradiction between claiming to be friendly toward Greece after he had threatened an invasion, demanded Greece take troops off Aegean islands near Turkey’s coast, and said he would send an energy research vessel and warship off Greek islands – as well as reiterating it would be a cause for war if Greece doubled its maritime boundaries to 12 miles.