(AFP) – Jan 17, 2008

ATHENS (AFP) — Greece announced Thursday an official visit to Turkey later this month by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, the first such trip in almost 50 years and the latest sign of a thaw in once tense relations.

Karamanlis will begin his three-day visit on January 23 -- the first official trip by a Greek prime minister to Turkey since his uncle Constantine in May 1959.

Karamanlis has visited Turkey several times in the past in an unofficial capacity.

"Greece seeks a permanent improvement in relations, and we are working in this direction," deputy government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros told journalists.

In Ankara, the office of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that "the entire range" of Greek-Turkish relations would be discussed along with regional and international issues during the Karamanlis visit.

Frequently difficult relations between the neighbouring states have thawed over recent years with economic cooperation, but sovereignty issues in the Aegean and the large Turkish military presence on Cyprus remain thorny issues.

Erdogan visited Athens in May 2004 and his Foreign Minister Ali Babacan laid the groundwork for the Karamanlis trip when he was in the Greek capital last month.

Once on the brink of war over an uninhabited Aegean Sea islet in 1996, Greece and Turkey improved relations after both countries were stricken by destructive earthquakes in 1999.

They have since held regular talks at both political and military levels.

Agreement to establish a hotline between their air forces and armies came after a Greek pilot died when his jet collided with a Turkish fighter in one of the mock dogfights that frequently occur in Aegean airspace.

In November, Karamanlis and Erdogan inaugurated a gas pipeline to the Caspian Sea hailed as a symbol of a new era of economic cooperation.

Turkish exports to Greece have also more than doubled between 2000 and 2006.

But similar progress remains to be seen on the political field, a senior Greek diplomatic official said, commenting on the upcoming Karamanlis visit.

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