Greece, Turkey: will former foes make friends?
18:55 | 25/ 01/ 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Yelena Shesternina) – Greek
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis arrived in the Turkish capital
Wednesday for what experts had dubbed a landmark visit even before it
started, the first visit to Turkey by a Greek premier in five decades.
The last Greek prime minister to pay an official visit to Turkey was
also Costas Karamanlis, a namesake and an uncle of the current leader.
The relations between the two nations have gone through a number of
crises since then, serious enough to be dubbed a "cold war" and invoke
a threat of a real "hot" conflict.
But will Karamanlis’ visit remain a landmark only because of the time
lapse since the last such contact, or will the two countries’ leaders
reach some tangible agreements which will literally change the world’s
map this time?
The tensions between Greece and Turkey have been caused by their
territorial disputes for many decades, primarily over Cyprus, which is
still divided into two areas, the Greek part populated by Greek
Cypriots, and the Turkish part, which is home to Turkish Cypriots and
Turkish immigrants.
The Turkish forces invaded the northern part of the island in 1974, and
repeated futile attempts to unify it have been made since then. The
last one failed because of the Greek Cypriots, who voted down UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan’s unification plan in a 2004 referendum:
they reckoned that too many concessions were required from them for the
return of their own lands. Cyprus ended up joining the European Union
as a divided nation, although legally the whole island is now a EU
member.
The talk of the need to resolve the Cyprus problem as soon as possible
reemerged late last year, brought up by all of the conflicting parties
simultaneously: Greece and Cyprus on the one hand, and Turkey and the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, on the other.
Any specific steps, including direct talks on the issue, are likely to
be scheduled after the February presidential elections in Cyprus. Prime
Minister Karamanlis pledged at his meeting with Turkish officials that
the last wall in Europe would come down soon.
Besides Cyprus, Greece and Turkey have a dispute over the continental
shelf of the Aegean Sea, as Angara refuses to recognize Greece’s right
to extend its off-shore territory to 12 miles, and several small
islands. These disputes have brought Athens and Ankara to the brink of
an open armed conflict on several occasions, last time in January 1996.
It was the interference of the United States and other NATO countries
that helped prevent a military conflict then. Greece decided it was
high time to put an end to this long confrontation and proposed
settling the issue in the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
Turkey sounds ready to compromise on many issues, because its EU
accession will be impossible without Greece and Cyprus’s agreement.
Athens’ position has become milder lately as well. Greece has agreed to
Turkey’s EU accession, but put forth certain very specific requirements
– that Turkey recognize Cyprus and normalize its relations with Greece
first of all.
Incidentally, the two countries are pragmatic enough not to let their
territorial disputes and political disagreements get in the way of
economic cooperation. Their commodity circulation came close to $3
billion last year, up from a mere $200 million in 1995.
The pipeline which connected Greece and Turkey to ship Azerbaijan’s
natural gas to Europe, the latest major joint project, was commissioned
in November 2007. This project could lay a foundation for normal
relations, if not a real friendship, between the former enemies.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.