TURKEY: Historic Visit – And Largely Inconsequential

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Jacques N. Couvas

ANKARA, Feb 1 2008 (IPS) - Constantinos Karamanlis, the first Greek prime minister to visit Turkey in 49 years, ended an uneventful three-day official trip to Ankara and Istanbul last week that is unlikely to have any impact on the erratic relations between the two East Mediterranean countries.

The visit had been hailed in advance by the two governments as “historical”, after half a century of attempts at rapprochement alternating with skirmishes that, on occasion, stopped just short of armed clashes. But, in spite of a cordial entente between Karamanlis and his Turkish counterpart and host Tayyip Recep Erdogan, the outcome is less than memorable.

Karamanlis had been reluctant all along to accept Erdogan’s invitation, repeated several times since 2005, not least because of its importune timing, when his government is facing loss of credibility in the midst of a protracted scandal, with ripple effects on himself and his wife Natassa.

Turkish prime ministers Turgut Ozal and Erdogan had visited Athens in 1988 and 2004 respectively; it was therefore a matter of etiquette to return the courtesy.

Although the visit had been agreed since December, its date remained elusive until Jan. 17, less than a week before Karamanlis landed at Esemboga airport in Ankara. The official reason was security, officials apparently being concerned violent demonstrations might spark in the Turkish capital. In reality, however, the Greek PM’s inner circle was divided as to the appropriateness of the excursion, considering the political and media climate in Athens.

Meanwhile, a series of incidents between the respective air forces and navies over territorial violations, resulting in mutual official protests at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the United Nations (UN), institutions of which both Greece and Turkey are members, signalled that Karamanlis’s crossing the Aegean Sea might become a perilous expedition.

The risk of a routine military incident turning into an embarrassing international crisis was in the end averted when the respective air, naval and coast guard commands were ordered to suspend any activities along the maritime borders that divide the two countries that might be deemed provocative. Even fishing boats on both sides were constrained to stay in port a whole week.

In a lecture delivered Jan. 23 at the prestigious Bilkent University in Ankara, the Greek PM confirmed the speculation of diplomats and analysts here that he travelled without political luggage. His speech, well received, included the usual platitudes of public relations visits by heads of governments. The core message was that the two countries need to turn the page on the past and look into the future. The speech will certainly not be recorded in history books, but was nevertheless reassuring.

Neither government had a true agenda for the prime ministerial encounter. Friendship between two neighbours who share so many things, although the seawater and fish are the only ones that promptly come to mind, were the leitmotiv of the tunes sung by Erdogan and Karamanlis at the various events staged together.

Turkish officials contend that their prime minister’s desk is cracking under the pile of files on relations with Greece that need urgent handling. The same holds true in Athens.

Frequent disputes over the maritime territory of the two countries, arming of border islands, ownership of undersea oil reserves in the Aegean, the status of Turkish minorities in Greek Thrace in the north of the country, the rights of the Christian Orthodox Patriarchate of Istanbul, airspace violations by the Turkish air force, mutual accusations of abuse of international law by fishing fleets, human and drug westbound trafficking, EU relations, and Cyprus are the main areas of dispute that have been neglected by both governments in recent years.

The minimum expectation in Greece was that the meeting would address at least three issues: opening by Turkey of at least one sea port to Cyprus vessels, commerce and particularly the lifting of obstacles to Greek investments in Turkey, and the status of the Patriarchate.

The two prime ministers’ respective addresses to the media made clear that the positions on these matters still differ, although willingness to find common ground within an undisclosed time frame was expressed.

In the aftermath of the visit, pro-government newspapers have published editorials favourable to accommodating Karamanlis’s plea for recognition of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as ecumenical (in effect global), a title conferred to it by a Christian synod in the seventh century AD.

The Turkish Republic, founded in 1923, has so far maintained that the Patriarch is merely the head of a Turkish Christian minority. There is still today an obsessive phobia among politicians and journalists that recognising the ecumenical nature of the Patriarchate might pave the road to the creation of a sovereign Orthodox state in the middle of Istanbul, on the model of the Vatican.

The Orthodox Patriarch is the spiritual head of Greek Orthodox Christians, who represent roughly ten percent of the 250-million strong worldwide Orthodox community. The remainder are concentrated in Russia and other Slavic nations, and in Africa.

Before the election of the Justice and Development (AK) Party of Erdogan in 2002, dialogue on the subject between Greece and Turkey had proven useless. The AKP government has, however, shown in recent years a willingness to talk.

“Patriarch Bartholomew has had meetings with the Prime Minister and, more recently, with President Abdullah Gul, who expressed their sympathy to our request,” a source close to the Patriarchate, who asked to remain anonymous, told IPS before Karamanlis’s visit. “At these meetings we were asked to make a petition in writing, which we did. But the follow up was simply silence from the government.”

The government stance may, however, now be changing. Both Gul and Erdogan said at the end of last week that the ecumenical title is, in the end “an internal matter” for Christians to decide. Some editorialists close to AKP have even proposed that Patriarch Bartholomew, a Turkish citizen and former army officer, could become the country’s best ambassador in Turkey’s effort to secure membership in the European Union.

The last visit to Ankara by a Greek prime minister took place in 1959 by Constantinos Karamanlis, an uncle of this PM, who wanted to mend the relationship between Turkey and Greece, seriously damaged by the 1955 pogrom against the Greek community of Istanbul, and the massive exodus that ensued.

In 1959, as last week, the official Greek visit was sponsored by the United States State Department, keen to secure peaceful coexistence between its two most temperamental NATO allies, at a time when new plans for the Middle East are drawn in Washington.

Karamanlis may have departed as empty-handed as when landed, but Erdogan has reinforced his international prestige and ensured another friendly voice in Brussels. And Patriarch Bartholomew may perhaps soon be able to wear his ecumenical dress in public.