Turkish, Greek leaders to talk boosting cooperation

By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA

Turkey’s president will welcome Greece’s premier Tuesday for a two-day visit focused on steps to improve bilateral cooperation, according to Turkey’s presidential press office.

Relations between Ankara and Athens will be comprehensively reviewed during the visit of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it added in a statement on Monday.

Erdogan and Tsipras are also expected to exchange views on regional and international developments.

Following their meeting in the capital Ankara on Tuesday, Tsipras is scheduled to visit Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul on Wednesday.

He is also expected to be the first Greek leader to visit Halki Seminary, a former Christian Orthodox school located on one of Istanbul’s Princes' Islands.

In recent years Erdogan has suggested that the seminary could be reopened if steps are taken by Athens to improve conditions for the Muslim community in Western Thrace, an area of Greece with a large Turkish Muslim population.

By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA

Turkey’s president will welcome Greece’s premier Tuesday for a two-day visit focused on steps to improve bilateral cooperation, according to Turkey’s presidential press office.

Erdogan and Tsipras are also expected to exchange views on regional and international developments.

Following their meeting in the capital Ankara on Tuesday, Tsipras is scheduled to visit Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul on Wednesday.

He is also expected to be the first Greek leader to visit Halki Seminary, a former Christian Orthodox school located on one of Istanbul’s Princes' Islands.