Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Tuesday that he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to defuse tensions and establish confidence-building measures in the Aegean region.
Greek, Turkey agree to reduce tension
STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 6, ARTSAKHPRESS: "We could work together to create a new strategy for the European-Turkish cooperation, bring forward our economic and energy cooperation and promote a dialogue between the defense and foreign ministries to reduce tension ... In this positive manner, we agreed today to return to negotiations between defense and foreign ministries to ease tensions and promote confidence-building measures," Tsipras said while broadcast by Greece's ERT, Urdupoint.com reports.
Tsipras also noted that he discussed with Erdogan ways to settle the Cyprus problem in the interests of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
The island of Cyprus has been de facto divided into the Republic of Cyprus and the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus since the 1970s, when Turkey sent its troops to the island in response to an attempted coup by the Greek military. As a result, Ankara occupied nearly 40 percent of the country's territory, where the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was proclaimed in 1983. Turkey remains the only country in the world that recognizes the republic as a sovereign state.
