GREEK PRIME MINISTER TO VISIT TURKEY FIRST TIME IN PAST 50 YEARS

Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis flies to Turkey today for the first official visit by a Greek leader in nearly 50 years. “I will be the first Greek Prime Minister to visit Turkey after a 48-year pause. Mr Erdogan and I will have a chance to focus of the Greek Turkish relations and their future,” Karamanlis said. As reported by the TDN, speaking to the Greek parliament last week, Kostas Karamanlis explained the real meaning of his trip to Turkey, and the real meaning of Greek-Turkish relations: "Greece and Turkey," he said "have a very long history and a very long difficult history. Our relations with Turkey are not straightforward; they have their ups and their downs. They have moments of tension and moments of abatement. There have been several efforts since the time of Kemal Atatürk and Eleftherios Venizelos, some went better some went worse.” “We follow a strategy with the eye to the future and not as a hostage of the past. We are looking for a gradual restoration of mutual trust. We are working on the full normalization of our bilateral relations, which, of course, presupposes, a solution on the Cyprus issue. With these crystal clear thoughts, this return visit of mine to Turkey is being planned. There is neither excessive optimism nor pessimism. There is realism. There is a sense of duty,” he said. “Ankara should normalize relations with Cyprus and recognize it.”

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