The upcoming electoral victory of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Turkish president is correcting the strategy that Washington seemed to prefer in order not to waste precious time and immediately start contacts between Athens and Ankara. Washington’s surprise at the results of Turkey’s first-round election seems to be causing the State Department to prioritize other, more bilateral issues facing Turkey. The Americans will insist on the main priority they have with regard to Turkey, namely the refusal of Sweden to join NATO, which, of course, is associated with Russian aggression in Ukraine. Stockholm currently remains in the waiting room of the North Atlantic Treaty due to Ankara’s refusal. Although in Greece the informal “dialogue” between Mr. Erdogan and Washington regarding the S-400, F-35, F-16, and Turkey’s special relationship with Russia has gone relatively unnoticed due to the internal pre-election period, its evolution will undoubtedly affect and Greek-Turkish.

Energy

In the context of finding positive points of convergence, both at the bilateral Greek-Turkish level and with the US proposal, one of the key issues is energy. Until recently, the immediate post-election activation of Geoffrey Pyatt (possibly also in the first half of July), who is the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in charge of energy resources, was planned. According to well-informed sources, Mr. Payat’s trip to the region is being postponed until the end of the summer so that Washington has a clearer picture of the real balance within Turkey. If for Mr. Payat the trip to Athens is easy, because, on the one hand, he knows everyone, and on the other hand, Greek-American relations are taking an unprecedented positive course, then this cannot be said about Ankara, where the United States has been constantly in recent days under the guns of Mr. Erdogan and the AKP. Washington cannot rule out with certainty – more than anything else for Mr. Erdogan – that the return to extreme anti-American tones is not due to the Turkish president’s campaign needs, but to a more permanent shift. In short, Washington fears that hard-earned progress and wasted political and diplomatic capital in rapprochement with Ankara could be reversed again.

Possible new difficulties in relations between Washington and Ankara in the near future, for obvious reasons, worry Athens, where there is a full understanding of the risk of re-engaging the Greek-Turkish forces in the American-Turkish turmoil, and because of this. In other words, there is a danger that Ankara will increase pressure on Athens, and even more so on Nicosia, in order to blackmail Washington with its demands. The most pessimistic think that Mr. Erdogan is pulling strings at best, not entering into meaningful negotiations with Washington, assuming that Joe Biden will not be re-elected in the November 5, 2024 US presidential election, paving the way for a strategic change in the position of Americans – mainly on the issue of Ukraine – freeing Ankara from the pressure it is currently under due to the careful balance it maintains with Moscow.

The State Department cannot categorically rule out the possibility that anti-American crowning is not an election tactic, but a political choice.

The specific risk is what leads Athens to analyze that – regardless of international or other events and whether the Americans are involved or not – there should be contacts between Greece and Turkey immediately after the elections and really at the highest level. This thought also emerged from the latest public statements by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who essentially identified Vilnius, Lithuania, as a possible meeting place on the sidelines of the July 11-12 NATO summit, where the two leaders could have a preliminary discussion. .

restart

Melting the ice between Mitsotakis and Erdogan is a necessary condition for the resumption of some Greek-Turkish contacts, but, of course, no guarantee of success. Recall the famous meeting – after tensions that almost led to war – on Orthodox Sunday 2022 in Istanbul, after which it was decided to lower the tone, but instead, Ankara’s even more aggressive statements and actions on the field followed. Recall that in this case, too, Turkey’s reaction was a direct consequence of Mr. Mitsotakis’s invitation to Washington, which Ankara regarded as a clear US preference for Greece.

Needless to say, Athens believes that today’s elections will lead to a comfortable re-election of Mr. Erdogan. There is a muted but real concern in Athens about politically powerful Turkish nationalism and the impact it could have on shaping Ankara’s foreign policy in the coming period. There is also speculation in Athens that in his new government, Mr. Erdogan will also begin to change the Turkish Foreign Ministry.