{"id":43862,"date":"2020-09-22T14:23:10","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T14:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=43862"},"modified":"2020-09-22T14:23:10","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T14:23:10","slug":"turkey-greece-ready-to-resume-exploratory-talks-over-east-med","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=43862","title":{"rendered":"Turkey, Greece &#8216;ready to resume&#8217; exploratory talks over East Med"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"117\">\n<p class=\"p1\">Turkey and Greece stated they are ready to resume exploratory talks to address their contested maritime claims in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, the Turkish presidency said, after a call between the leaders of Turkey, Germany and the European Union on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In a video conference between President Tayyip Erdogan, Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Council President Charles Michel, Erdogan said the &#8220;partial momentum&#8221; secured by establishing dialogue should be maintained with reciprocal steps, the Turkish presidency said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Erdogan also said he hoped an EU summit on September 24-25 would bring new impetus to Turkey-EU ties, adding concrete steps on updating a customs union between the two sides, visa-free travel and migration would help put ties on a positive basis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, are locked in a heated dispute about energy exploration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Turkey&#8217;s deployment last month of research vessel Oruc Reis prompted the uneasy neighbours to stage rival air and naval drills in strategic waters between Cyprus and the Greek island of Crete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Last weekend, Ankara pulled the vessel back to the shore for maintenance after its one-month mission, but it extended the operations of another research vessel, Barbaros Hayrettin Pasa, off Cyprus until October 18, according to a message on Friday on maritime alert system NAVTEX.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey&#8217;s drillship Yavuz will also remain off Cyprus until October 12. In recent days, the likelihood of the two countries entering dialogue has improved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Like Ankara, a Greek official on Monday said Greece and Turkey were close to reviving talks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;We are close to restarting the exploratory talks &#8230; There will be an announcement when this is finalised but the atmosphere is good,&#8221; Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In a separate development on Tuesday, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Jordan and Italy signed a charter founding a new intergovernmental body with<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>the aim of promoting cooperation over the sensitive issue of natural<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>gas resources.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The six countries signed the charter for the East Mediterranean Gas<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>Forum in a ceremony via videoconference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Cairo-based forum aims to &#8220;create a climate of trust and good<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>neighbourly relations&#8221; through regional cooperation in the energy<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>field.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkey and Greece stated they are ready to resume exploratory talks to address their contested maritime claims in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, the Turkish presidency said, after a call between the leaders of Turkey, Germany and the European Union on Tuesday. In a video conference between President Tayyip Erdogan, Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}