Following a five-year pause, Greece and Turkey held a meeting in January to address their many disputes In order to give diplomacy a chance, the US and the EU are unlikely to slap further sanctions on Turkey WASHINGTON D.C.: After a tumultuous four years of Donald Trump’s rule, Joe Biden has entered the White House with a packed domestic agenda, not least the ongoing pandemic and its economic repercussions but also the gnawing issue of race relations. As such, one might expect Biden to place America’s foreign relations on the backburner, at least for the time being. However, Biden has a strong track record on high-level diplomacy, chalking up several years of engagement with America’s friends and foes, projecting US national interests abroad. Now that he has assumed the highest office in the land, he has pledged to restore America’s image on the world stage. Coincidentally, Biden’s tenure began just days before long-awaited talks between Greece and Turkey took place in Istanbul — the latest in the protracted territorial dispute which has long threatened the peace of the Mediterranean Sea. Delayed by several months, and following a relative easing of tensions, talks between Greece and Turkey are, on the surface at least, an exercise in minimal expectations. Exploratory talks resumed after a pause of five years, picking up where they left off in 2016. Little progress toward normalizing relations was made between 2002 to 2016, during which time some 60 rounds of talks took place. There is little sign things will be any different this time around. However, Biden is not Trump. He will need very little time getting up to speed on the dispute in the eastern Mediterranean and his active involvement in the State Department’s handling of the issue is beyond doubt. Furthermore, Biden will end the Trump-era practice of direct diplomacy between the White House and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, preferring instead to act through the standard institutional channels. Greece has reason to feel optimistic about the US stance. Biden has on numerous occasions endorsed the Greek position on de-escalation, solving outstanding issues through dialogue and recourse to international law. He is also a supporter of the religious rights of the Greek minority in Turkey, and especially of the role of the patriarchate in Istanbul. By any measure, Greek-US relations are at their peak, having been strengthened during the Trump years and made stronger through multiple agreements on trade and mutual defense.