Erdogan visit to Greece sparks political controversy

The historic visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Athens on December 7 sparked a political disagreement between ruling party SYRIZA and main opposition New Democracy.

In the first visit by a Turkish president in 65 years, Erdogan appeared to raise a series of controversial issues from the very beginning of his official visit. Specifically, he spoke of the need to revise the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which defines the borders between Greece and Turkey, and referred many times to the rights of a “Turkish minority” in Thrace which Greece recognizes to be a “Muslim minority” of Greek citizens.

Erdogan openly disagreed with both the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on a series of thorny, long-standing issues.

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