Turkey and Greece resumed talks to settle their nearly two-decade dispute over maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean Sea. The talks, which opened on Monday in Istanbul, are the first in five years. There have been 60 rounds of such talks since 2002, which have generated little progress. Monday’s talks are considered informal and non-binding.
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Both Turkey and Greece are members of NATO. Both NATO and the European Union have expressed concern about the possibility of armed conflict over the dispute, Al Jazeera reported, and pressed for the renewed talks. Turkey has been trying to join the EU since 1987, but accession negotiations stalled in 2016.
In August, the conflict between Turkey and Greece was exacerbated after Turkey sent a research ship accompanied by a navy flotilla to explore for undersea oil and gas in the Eastern Mediterranean waters in an area which Greece claims, backed by the EU.