HERAKLION - Turkish State Minister Mehmet Aydin participated in the Fifth Turkish-Greek Media Conference on Saturday in Heraklion on the Greek island of Crete.
Delivering a speech at the conference, Aydin said Turkish-Greek relations have recently made a rapid improvement in all areas despite what he described as "an nonconstructive history of neighborly relations due to certain historical and sociological reasons.
Aydin called for "direct contacts" between the two countries in order to produce first-hand information.
"We have to ask ourselves this question: How genuine are our differences which we think we have? We need to know each other through our direct experiences and we need to construct our relations by talking to each other and with our media members," Aydin said.
Also participating in the conference, Greek Tourism Minister Aris Spiliotopoulos said the media had a major role between the two countries.
"Media plays a definitive role, for better or worse, in relations between the two peoples. We need to get over the obsessions of the past because our peoples want friendship," Spiliotopoulos said.
(YMB-UK)
(GEN)