Greek PM Mitsotakis offers rare nod to Ataturk in Turkey amid maritime row
In a rare reference to Ataturk, a divisive figure in Greece, the Greek premier reaffirmed his commitment to dialogue.
ANKARA — Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday gave a rare nod to modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, after meeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, signaling a desire to improve ties with his country’s Aegean neighbor.
Details: “We must uphold the legacy of Eleftherios Venizelos and Kemal Ataturk,” Mitsotakis said through a translator, referring to the former Greek prime minister in the 1930s. Former wartime rivals in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, Venizelos and Ataturk later became the architects of a historic reconciliation between Ankara and Athens in the early 1930s.
The visit marked Mitsotakis’ first trip to Ankara since 2024, where he held talks with Erdogan that lasted roughly two hours, followed by a joint press conference. The Greek leader was accompanied by a large delegation, but Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias, who is widely viewed in Ankara as a hard-liner voice on Turkey, did not attend, citing prior commitments in Brussels.
The two leaders discussed confidence-building measures in the Aegean, maritime disputes, ways to expand bilateral trade and cooperation on migration, and they oversaw the signing of six memorandums of understanding to expand cooperation in several fields, including culture, technology and trade.
The visit, long planned as part of the high-level political dialogue between Ankara and Athens, took place amid renewed urgency on migration, coming just days after 15 migrants died while sailing toward the Greek island of Chios when their boat collided with a Greek coast guard vessel and sank in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish coast.
Despite being NATO allies, the two neighbors often engage in spats due to conflicting territorial claims in the Aegean Sea and airspace over it.
The visit also comes after repeated statements by Greek officials that the country may extend its territorial waters in the Aegean from six to 12 nautical miles, a potential move Ankara in 1995 declared as a “cause of war.”
Mitsotakis pressed for the removal of the threat: “It is time now to lift every threat, formal and substantive, in our relations. If not now, then when?”
Why it matters: Although the meeting produced little tangible progress on long-running disputes, Mitsotakis’ rare invocation of Ataturk’s legacy stood out as a symbolic gesture of commitment to Ankara-Athens rapprochement.
As the founder of Turkey’s modern, secular republic, Ataturk is deeply revered by Turks but remains a more divisive figure for many Greeks, who remember him as the commander who defeated Greek forces during the war. The conflict is known in Turkey as the War of Independence, and in Greece as the Catastrophe of 1922.
Mitsotakis’ reference recalled the 1930 rapprochement between Venizelos and Turkey’s founding president, forged after both came to power at home. Venizelos later nominated Ataturk for the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize — a striking symbol of reconciliation.
The devastating February 2023 earthquakes in southern Turkey, which killed more than 50,000 people, helped open the door to a thaw, with Ankara and Athens resuming confidence-building talks in November 2023 aimed at preventing mishaps between their armies in the contested Aegean waters. The year before, maritime territorial disputes pushed them to the brink of armed conflict.
Know more: Turkey and Greece lack a maritime boundary agreement due to overlapping claims and historical territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea. Ankara rejects Athens’ right to expand its territorial waters to 12 miles, arguing this would place over 70% of the Aegean under Greek control. Conversely, Greece maintains that international law entitles all its islands — including Kastellorizo, located 350 miles from the mainland — to full maritime rights.
