Turkish tourists can now easily visit nearby Greek islands

FOR YEARS Ahmet Bayrakli could look at the Greek island of Samos only from his hometown of Kusadasi, on Turkey’s western coast. Despite the tiny distance between them—1,650 metres at the closest point—he was unable to travel there without getting a full Schengen visa, an increasingly difficult process for Turks. Since April, however, the doors of ten Greek islands, including Samos, have been flung open with a special “gate” visa that lets Turks stay for seven days. Mr Albayrak is one of tens of thousands who have taken advantage.

“It was ridiculous before—this is our neighbour,” he said, as he joined the queue for the morning ferry, which crosses from Kusadasi to Samos Town, the island’s capital, in 90 minutes.

The gate visa, agreed to at the end of last year, is the fruit of warming relations between Athens and Ankara. For years, the two countries have been locked in rows over maritime borders in the Aegean, gas rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, refugees, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s enthusiasm for turning Turkey’s Byzantine-era churches into mosques.

None of those disputes has disappeared. Rather, both Mr Erdogan and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, have decided that there is more to be gained by being friends. “The cost of geopolitical tension was considerable,” says Galip Dalay, a fellow at Chatham House, a think-tank in London.

When they meet in person, Greeks and Turks tend to get on. Music, cuisine and drinking cultures on either side of the Aegean are almost identical, and the Samian dialect of Greek is scattered with Turkish words. Political rows and the pandemic hurt tourism businesses on both sides, as they rely on traffic between the islands and the Turkish coast for much of their custom.

Turkey’s stubbornly high annual inflation rate, which hit 75% in May, also means that Greek holidays, once a lot pricier than Turkish getaways, are now economically more attractive. Turks still have to pay a lot to get a gate visa, however: €60 ($65), only slightly less than a full Schengen visa, and they have to take out travel insurance to cover their time in Greece. Not all Samos businesses believe they will see the benefits. As one Samos artisan, selling ceramics from his village workshop, put it, “The Turks are coming, but they don’t have money.” ■

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