Greek-Turkish Relations in an Era of Détente

Barry Rubin, Ali Çarkoglu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000082883
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Greek-Turkish conflict-ridden relations have long occupied a problematic position in the Western alliance, first in NATO then, more dramatically, within the context of the newly developing European Union and its defence initiatives. Following three major earthquakes on both sides of the Aegean, the two countries have now experienced, firstly, a public empathy towards each other, and secondly, a significant diplomatic rapprochement. This rapprochement though has failed to resolve the Cyprus conflict, and is now at risk of reverting back to a series of conflicts. This book addresses the crucial issues between Greece and Turkey, from a critical perspective, and provides an up-to-date assessment of the current state of the Greek-Turkish rapprochement and its future development. This book was previously published as a special issue of the journal Turkish Studies.

1

Introduction

BARRY RUBIN

In a world full of crises and problems, few seemed less solvable than the Greek-Turkish conflict. After all, this was not only an old and bitter quarrel, but it involved many different issues. Aside from historic mistrust, there existed the Cyprus and Aegean questions, for which no compromises appeared likely.

Suddenly, however, this historic rivalry seemed to melt away. The ostensible occasion were the earthquakes suffered by each country, which gave the opportunity to send condolences and material aid. Yet the real factor behind this dramatic shift was a rethinking of historic Greek policy by the government in Athens.

Rather than use the conflict for demagogic purposes, as had been pursued by predecessor politicians, Greece had undergone a major change in its thinking. A better future lay neither with international posturing nor by mobilizing popular support by stirring up passions about the Turkish threat. Rather, the strategy was to downplay these old, profitless quarrels and turn one’s face towards a European future. Greece’s success would rest on integration with Europe and economic achievement.

This was, to say the least, a mature decision—and one well worthy of emulation elsewhere—based on putting the needs and interests of the Greek people first. For its part, Turkey was quite ready to take a similar course, made easier for Ankara by the fact that in both cases, the Aegean and Cyprus, it had possession of the territory under dispute.

What Greece did have, however, was its position as the gatekeeper that could keep Turkey out of the European Union (EU). On this point, too, Greece changed its tactics, ending a previous policy of making Turkish membership more difficult. Now, the argument was that if Turkey was part of the EU it would moderate its behavior in a way consistent with Greek interests. At the same time, Greece advocated early membership for the Greek-controlled republic of Cyprus as a major benefit for its co-ethnics there, and perhaps also as a way of putting additional pressure on Turkey to agree to a solution for the divided island.

The détente policy between the two countries, therefore, did not lead to the instant solution of their disputes and problems, but it did suggest a healthier, more mutually beneficial arrangement of priorities. The shift in Greek-Turkish relations is a useful development to study, both because of its intrinsic importance but also as a useful case of conflict resolution initiated by local parties based on a clear vision that the struggle no longer serves their interests. Of course, the relevant issues are also going to be important questions for future European and EU politics as well as for US foreign policy and a range of other considerations. This is the subject of this special issue of Turkish Studies—“Greek-Turkish Relations in an Era of Détente.”

One of the most important elements in Greek-Turkish relations is that of US policy, which has sought to reduce the conflict but has often tilted towards the Turkish side. US policy has viewed the conflict as a waste of effort in view of far more important priorities—historically the US-USSR conflict and more recently US efforts against radical and terror-supporting states in the Middle East. Kostas Ifantis provides an analysis of current US policy in the region in “Strategic Imperatives and Regional Upheavals: On the US Factor in Greek-Turkish Relations.”

We also consider the major new potential conflict in their bilateral relations: the two countries’ diametrically opposed views of the Balkan situation. In the conflicts in Bosnia-Herzgovina and Kosovo, Greece supported Christian, Slavic Yugoslavia while Turkey backed the Muslim, Turkic Bosnians and Kosovars. In contrast to other questions, this division placed Turkey on the side of the European (and American) policies and Greece into an opposing position. The issue is explored by Othon Anastasakis in “Greece and Turkey in the Balkans: Cooperation or Rivalry?”

Ahmet Sözen looks at the major single issue that continues to create Greek-Turkish friction, assessing the various attempts to solve the thorny Cyprus conflict in “A Model of Power-Sharing: From the 1959 London-Zurich Agreements to the Annan Plan.” Two contributions examine the military budgets of the two countries regarding their responses to past frictions and current détente. Gülay Günlük-Şenesen provides “An Analysis of the Action-Reaction Behavior in the Defense Expenditures of Turkey and Greece,” while Christos Kollias focuses on “Greek Defense Spending in Perspective.”

Two other contributions tackle the all-important question of mutual perceptions, with Ahmet Evin considering “Changing Greek Perspectives on Turkey: An Assessment of the post-Earthquake Rapprochement” and Ali Çarkoğlu and Kemal Kirişci studying “The View from Turkey: Perceptions of Greeks and Greek-Turkish Rapprochement by the Turkish Mass Public.” Ali Çarkoğlu also provides a concluding look at these issues.

We hope that these essays provide a revealing and original glimpse of Greek-Turkish relations at a moment of relative détente and cooperation, while also showing the remaining issues of contention, which might derail this welcome era. This volume is in itself an example of amicable Greek-Turkish cooperation and we wish to thank all those involved in it. This work is based on cooperation between the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center’s Turkish Studies Institute and the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (Türkiye Ekonomik ve Sosyal Etüdler Vakfi—TESEV) and on a workshop on the topic held at Sabanci University. We wish to thank all those involved in both institutions and especially Ali Çarkoğlu of Sabanci University and Elisheva Rosman, Özgül Erdemli and Ehud Waldoks of the GLORIA Center.

The current work is a special issue of Turkish Studies and, given the importance of the issues under discussion here, is also being published in book form (thanks are due to Ahmet Dalmann and Ufuk İlman of Hürriyet for helping us locate the cover image). We also would like to thank Vicky Johnson of Frank Cass for her assistance in publishing this project.

2

Changing Greek Perspectives on Turkey: an Assessment of the post-Earthquake Rapprochement

AHMET O. EVIN

Since 1999, Greek-Turkish relations appear to have undergone a positive change. A wave of sympathy in Greece for the victims of the Izmit-Gölcük earthquake of August 17, 1999, and the swift response to the disaster by the Greek government, as well as nongovernmental relief organizations, received broad media coverage in Turkey and gave rise to a warm sense of appreciation in Turkey. Less than a month later, the Turkish side responded in kind. The rescue work by Turkish relief organizations—notably the highly professional voluntary group, AKUT—was greatly appreciated in Greece in the aftermath of the September 7, 1999, Athens earthquake. Once again, broad media coverage in both countries reflected and reinforced a strong sense of mutual sympathy. It seems that Greek-Turkish relations took an unprecedented turn in the wake of the earthquakes that hit both sides of the Aegean.

Was it, in fact, the earthquakes that engendered a fundamental change in Greek perceptions of Turkey and the Turks? Or, did the earthquakes merely constitute catalysts for precipitating a significant process of change, the time for which had come? Indeed, there had been a significant but modest move towards a Greek-Turkish rapprochement prior to the 1999 earthquakes. Nonetheless, it was after the seismic disasters that the relations took a significant turn for the better. Yet, the question remains whether the post-1999 rapprochement does represent an irreversible process of change and an increasing improvement of relations between the neighbors.

It is with the foregoing questions in mind that an assessment will be made in this essay of the recent rapprochement between Greece and Turkey, with a particular emphasis on the nature of the changes in Greek perceptions of Turkey. The changes in outlook as well as policy will be considered against the historical background of Greek-Turkish relations. An attempt will be made to project a realistic perspective on the basis of the progress achieved thus far in the process of rapprochement as well as the challenges that remain to be addressed.

A SHARED HISTORY

Greece and Turkey, chiefly due to historical reasons, pose a particularly difficult set of problems for each other. Turks and Greeks shared the same geographical area for a millennium, but their coexistence in that space does not seem to have resulted in a positive memory of a mutual experience.¹ To the contrary, a deep feeling of adversity seems to have permeated relations between the two countries ever since Greece’s independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Paradoxically, it is their shared history that has separated Greeks and Turks from one another, a shared history that has been remembered and interpreted in a widely divergent manner on opposite sides of the Aegean Sea. After Greek independence, formally recognized in 1832, Ottoman rule came to be increasingly viewed as a period of unrelenting oppression during which Greek culture, identity and national expression was repressed and frozen in time. It is true that Greek independence was achieved after eight years of struggle to overthrow what the Greeks have called Tourkokratia, a word that refers to Ottoman rule over Greece with the connotation of repressive dominance.² But the social mobilization that accompanied the nation-building program of the Greek state propagated the notion of “four hundred years of Turkish yoke,” during which the history of Hellenic peoples was perceived to have come to a standstill—only to be animated after their liberation.³ Greek nationalism, reinforced by the revolutionary ardor of the romantic era, thus rejected even the possibility of a shared history with Turkey and, in the process, successfully suppressed memories of any common experience. This included, for example, the common experience of taking part, with Turks as well as other Christian-born subjects, in no less an important vocation than imperial administration. The leaders of the Greek independence movement, be they the warriors themselves or their intellectual supporters, had every reason to obliterate the memory of the Greek elites who had served as members of Ottoman ruling classes, while at the same time they had good reason to perpetuate vivid memories of the Greek Church in captivity and of the Greek community’s valiant struggle to free itself from the cruel Ottoman overlords.

For the Turks, on the other hand, Greek independence represented the beginning of what would become the traumatic experience of losing an empire. The Greeks were the first of the Ottoman subject peoples to gain full independence, which, in itself, had far reaching consequences insofar as Ottoman reforms and modernization were concerned. Because their loyalty came to be suspect, the Phanariot Greeks,⁴ for example, who had been entrusted with handling the Empire’s foreign relations, were replaced with Turks who were given a Western education expressly for the purpose of preparing them to serve in those positions for which the Ottomans had customarily recruited non-Muslims.

While Greek independence did not detract from the Turkish ruling elite’s commitment to Ottomanism, it nevertheless resulted in a somewhat unclear and confusing perception of the Greek Orthodox millet—both as Ottoman subjects and subjects of a separate sovereign state that claimed Ottoman territory. Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, Turkish reformers sought the means to sustain Ottoman cosmopolitanism through establishing a strong, centralized modern state and then legitimizing that state by proclaiming it to be a constitutional monarchy.⁵ For their part, the founders of the independent Greek state focused on instilling a strong sense of national identity, not only in the subjects of the new independent state but also in the Greek peoples throughout the Ottoman Empire. It was during the debates leading to the promulgation of the 1844 Constitution that the phrase Megali Idea (the Great Idea) was coin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Changing Greek Perspectives on Turkey: An Assessment of the post-Earthquake Rapprochement
• 3 Strategic Imperatives and Regional Upheavals: On the US Factor in Greek-Turkish Relations
• 4 Greece and Turkey in the Balkans: Cooperation or Rivalry?
• 5 A Model of Power-Sharing in Cyprus: From the 1959 London-Zurich Agreements to the Annan Plan
• 6 An Analysis of the Action-Reaction Behavior in the Defence Expenditure of Turkey and Greece
• 7 The Greek-Turkish Rapprochement, the Underlying Military Tension and Greek Defense Spending
• 8 The View from Turkey: Perceptions of Greeks and Greek-Turkish Rapprochement by the Turkish Public
• 9 Conclusion
• Index