Greece–Turkey confidence-building measures: Hellenic Tactical Air Command chief makes a three-day visit to Eskişehir

Lieutenant General (Air) Panagiotis Georgakopoulos, chief of the Hellenic Tactical Air Command, made a three-day visit to Eskişehir in central Turkey, from Tuesday, November 3 to Thursday, November 5, 2026. The visit is part of the Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) that Athens and Ankara agreed for 2026. The Hellenic Air Force General Staff made it public on the evening of Friday, November 6, in an announcement titled “Confidence-Building Measures Greece – Turkey, Year 2026.”

The Greek officer, who headed a delegation of the Hellenic Air Force, visited Turkey’s Combat Air Force Command (Muharip Hava Kuvveti Komutanlığı), based in Eskişehir. There he met its commander, Air General Erdoğan Gür. This is the command to which the fighter squadrons of the Turkish air force belong, the counterpart of the Hellenic Tactical Air Command in Larissa.

The other side recorded the same contact. Turkey’s Ministry of National Defence said that Lt. Gen. Georgakopoulos and his entourage were hosted as official guests of Air General Gür and that the visit falls within the CBMs agreed for 2026.

The 2026 programme and the next round

The meeting in Eskişehir follows the round of consultations on October 9, when delegations of the two countries, with ambassadors and senior officers, reviewed in Chania the measures of the current year and the implementation plan for 2027. Turkey’s ministry wrote then on X that the meeting took place “in a positive atmosphere” and that Turkey will host the next round.

Contacts between the headquarters of the two air forces are not new. The Hellenic Air Force announced a visit by the Tactical Air Command chief to Turkey in December 2024 and issued a statement on that year’s CBMs in October 2025. These measures are, together with the political dialogue and the positive agenda, one of the three tracks of communication between Athens and Ankara confirmed by the Athens Declaration of December 2023.

The visit took place in a week of new friction at sea south of Kasos. On Friday, November 6, Ankara issued a counter-NAVTEX for the Abeille Marengo, the vessel surveying the route of the Greece–Cyprus power interconnection cable. The CBMs aim to reduce the risk of accidents in the Aegean, and the Greek chief’s visit to Eskişehir had ended on Thursday, November 5, a day before the counter-NAVTEX.