Election year in Turkey and Greece is a “whipping boy” for all contestants

2023 is an election year for Greece, Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus. And this is a "difficult moment" for Greek-Turkish relations, as diplomats and analysts emphasize, but also for the efforts to maintain tensions at a low point. But it seems quite the opposite is true. As everyone admits, the pre-election period, and in fact in all three countries at the same time, is the occasion for tones to rise even more.

After all, tension, as an element of simple distraction, is a great beguilement in the face of everyday problems, which any Turkish government, present, or future, have to deal with.

Greece has become part of Turkey's pre-election agenda for good, as has Turkey in Greece. The attacks of Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have also unfettered the Turkish opposition, which is now attacking Greece from more extreme positions, reminiscent of other times.

Greek state: Title deeds to 90,000 encroached upon properties Focus on 2023

The emphasis on 2023 and Erdogan's need to present his country in view of the 100 years since the foundation of the modern Turkish state as an international and powerful player is also infused into Ankara's policy towards Athens.

And the question that keeps coming back is: Erdogan or the opposition? Does Greece have an "interest" in a change of government in Turkey and to what extent will there really be a change for the better relative to Ankara-Athens relations and a willingness to avoid proclivities from Turkey?

As Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have molted into an autocratic "sultan" according to the Western media, yet, as Die Welt recently noted, upon his rise to power in 2003, he was the leader pushing for reforms when Ankara was going through the "golden years" of its relations with the EU...