POLITICS-TURKEY/GREECE: Optimism As Relations Continue To Thaw

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Feb 8 2000 (IPS) - Optimism reigns in Turkish-Greek relations as Athens and Ankara carefully pave the way for the peaceful settlement of inflammable political issues which, in the past, have brought both countries to the brink of war.

Turkish foreign minister, Ismail Cem and his Greek counterpart, Georges Papandreu, have had a number of reciprocal visits aimed at concrete confidence building between the two countries.

Cem, this weekend, returned from Athens having signed five agreements on scientific, economic and cultural cooperation, maritime transportation, and customs regulations.

Further, Greek Prime Minister, Kostas Simitis, is reported to have accepted Cem’s invitation for an official visit to Turkey. If Simitis wins the scheduled April general elections, he is expected to be the first Greek premier to visit Ankara in five decades.

However, an immediate breakthrough on territorial issues and other disputes, which have fanned serious conflicts over the last three decades, appears unlikely. “I don’t want to exaggerate what we have achieved in the last six months but the agreements we signed are significant,” said Cem.

Georges Kirbaki, an Athens-based reporter for teen able to agree on what the disagreements are.

Turkish-Greek relations went on a downward spiral following Turkey’s 1974 military intervention in Cyprus in response to an Athens backed military takeover by Nikos Sampson.

Since then, ethnic Turkish populated northern one-third of the island remains under Turkish military control – a major point of dispute between Ankara and Athens.

Controversy between the two North Atlantic Trea serious concerns for European security.

However, all disagreements were put on the back burner as the two countries, devastated by successive earthquakes, came together and cooperated with humanitarian aid and rescue attempts.

On Aug 17 a massive earthquake struck Turkey killing 17,000 people. Athens was hit by a quake of similar magnitude a month later.

Evoking memoirs of past co-existence ofcountries is not simply due to humanitarian concerns but is also based in recent regional developments.

“How could an earthquake have concluded the vendetta between two nations once and for all?” questions journalist Leyla Tavsanoglu, who covered Cem’s visit to Athens last week. “The recent developments are as a matter of fact manipulated by multi- lateral interests as well as pressure from the Unieing Greek- Turkish relations. However, ongoing tension and eventual instability in NATO’s southeastern flank is no more tolerable for Washington who seeks Ankara’s cooperation in the bid to control the oil resources in the Caucasus and Central Asia,” he says.

“Therefore the present situation between the two countries arises not out of the effects of the earthquakes but out of US foreign policy priorities,” he concludes.

Sam Kohen, also a political analyst, says the changing situation will have further impact on Greek politit benefit any one,” says Kohen referring to a statement by Papandreu in which he says; “The improvement in our relations is backed by our peoples”.

As Cem visited Athens, Muslim immigrants from Greece and Greek Orthodox immigrants from Turkey and their offspring who had been reciprocally deported in 1924 from their native lands after the conclusion of Greek-Turkish war of 1920 to 1922, were holding a unique meeting in Istanbul.

In accordance with a 1923 treaty Turkey deportey in a massive population transfer which has never been free of violence, looting and massacres.

Greek citizens born in Turkey and their Turkish counterparts born in Greece are founding a joint Association of Deportees. “The aim is to increase public awareness against war, refresh the memoirs of a joint past and the agonies of deportation and develop their shared culture,” says the spokesperson Sefer Guvenc.

“The earthquakes from below and Clinton from above pushed and we suddenly became friends. However, for a lasting rapprochement we need lasting policies,” says Greek composer Manolis Resolis ironically criticising the fashion of friendship prevailing among the establishments of both countries.

“Some 20 percent of the present Turkish populag of the deportees from Greece,” says novelist Kemal Yalcin. In his novel, “The Dowry Case” Yalcin describes the bitter experience of his ethnic Greek neighbours from his home town in the Burdur province who were deported from their native surroundings.

“Those deported from Greece to Turkey have named their new villages after their native localities, inscribed their Greek place of birth on their Turkish tombs, and have lived in constant nostalgia. We have to revive those experiences in order to avoid their repetition,” said Yalcin.

“My father throughout all my childhood had bannhis childhood his father banned her from wearing blue.

“He believed it was the national colour of our current optimism is not spoiled by the politicians’ mega strategies and colours are not banned for national prejudices once again,” she says.