Vice Admiral Antonios Antoniadis will hold talks with his Turkish counterpart Ozden Ornek on Tuesday in a meeting closed to the press. He will also visit navy facilities in Istanbul and Golcuk in the northwest of the country before returning, the Turkish navy said in a statement.

Greek commanders have in the past visited Turkey but only for multilatereal meetings hosted by Ankara. Antoniadis will be the first to come for an official visit.

The Greek commander's four-day visit comes against a backdrop of recent accusations between Ankara and Athens over violation of each other's territorial waters in the Aegean Sea which separates the two countries.

Despite a significant rapprochement in recent years, NATO members Turkey and Greece remain at loggerheads over various territorial rights in the Aegean Sea and regularly accuse each other of violations and harassment.

In January 2002, the two neighbors launched closed-door talks to resolve their disputes, but there has so far been no indication of progress.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.