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  • Greece, Turkey: will former foes make friends?

    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.
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