Greece and Turkey have started trust-building talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels, aimed at settling the dispute between the two countries over the Aegean sea air corridors, a Greek foreign office spokesman said on Thursday.
The two countries' NATO representatives, Greece's Vassilis Cascarellis and Turkey's Onur Oymen, met for half an hour with NATO Secretary General George Robertson on Wednesday to consider questions of operational interest, Panos Beglitis told journalists.
The three discussed the adoption of a system that would monitor warplanes over the Aegean, the flight of un-armed planes over the area and the exchange of information between the two countries' NATO control centers, according to a Greek source.
The questions "do not come as a package, and can be treated individually," Beglitis said. "If an agreement can be reached on one of the issues, it will be enforced," he said.
The three said they would meet again very soon, and at least before the NATO's ministerial meeting in Brussels on December 14, according to Beglitis.
Greek and Turkish diplomatic heads agreed at the end of October in Budapest to use NATO as the framework to pursue measures designed at building mutual trust between the two countries, as well as working at bilateral talks.
An agreement over working at trust building between the two countries goes back to 1988, when Turkey and Greece's then foreign ministers signed an agreement. The accord largely fell by the wayside.
Bilateral tensions between the countries flared at the end of October after Greece pulled out of NATO war games in Turkey after a quarrel with Ankara over disputed air corridors over the Aegean Sea -- ATHENS (AFP)
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