⁍ Turkey and Greece, both NATO members, sharply disagree over rights to potential energy resources.

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⁍ Tensions simmered in August when Turkish and Greek warships collided.

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⁍ But later eased when Ankara and Athens agreed to resume talks.

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– The foreign ministers of Turkey and Greece met on Thursday for the first time since their dispute over energy exploration and territorial rights in the eastern Mediterranean, and agreed to hold bilateral talks on the issue, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. Tensions simmered in August when Turkish and Greek warships collided, but later eased when Ankara and Athens agreed to resume talks. On Thursday, Cavusoglu said he met with Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias on the sidelines of the Global Security Forum in the Slovak capital Bratislava for about 25 minutes. “During this meeting, we agreed that exploratory talks and confidence building measures would be carried out in the coming period,” Cavusoglu said, per Reuters. “Since Turkey will host this, we will suggest some dates for these meetings.” Greece has accused Turkey of illegally carrying out seismic exploration in parts of the Mediterranean claimed by Athens and Cyprus, but Turkey says its operations are within international law and that it will not allow Athens and Nicosia’s “maximalist” claims to trap it in a narrow strip of waters dotted with Greek islands.