Turkey reaches out to end disputes with Greece

Thomas Seibert, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 18. 2009 12:00AM UAE / November 17. 2009 8:00PM GMT

ISTANBUL // Crack troops had landed and were ready to attack the enemy. Warships were circling each other. A nationalistic frenzy had taken hold of the public in both Turkey and Greece – and all because of two pieces of uninhabited rock in the Aegean Sea.

In January 1996, the two neighbours and Nato allies came to the brink of war over the two islets, called Kardak in Turkish and Imia in Greek, which both countries claim for themselves. Only a last-minute intervention by the US government prevented a military confrontation in the waters around the islets.

After a decade of efforts by Ankara and Athens to strengthen ties, such a dramatic escalation seems unthinkable today. But while disputes over sovereignty in the Aegean are dormant, they have not been resolved, and a new crisis could erupt easily. The two countries also remain divided by the Cyprus issue, with Greece backing the internationally recognised Greek republic on the Mediterranean island and Turkey supporting the breakaway Turkish sector.

But now Turkey and Greece may be about to start a new phase of co-operation, observers say. Earlier this month, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, wrote a letter to George Papandreou, his freshly elected Greek counterpart. Mr Erdogan proposed new efforts to solve the problems between the two countries, including Cyprus and the complicated dispute about the boundaries of territorial waters and airspace in the Aegean.

Mr Papandreou has promised an answer to the letter shortly, the Greek foreign ministry has said.

“The idea is that these issues can be solved in a package manner,” said Sinan Ulgen, head of the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, or Edam, a think tank in Istanbul. “There is a feeling in Ankara that there is a window of opportunity on Cyprus. The objective is to get the Greek government on board as soon as we can. If Cyprus can be solved, we can address the Aegean issue.”

In his letter, Mr Erdogan referred to his government’s basic foreign policy principle to have “zero problems” with all of Turkey’s neighbours, Turkish media reported. Ankara recently improved relations with Syria, Iraq and Iran and signed protocols calling for normalisation of relations with Armenia. Mr Erdogan’s government has also signalled its determination to find a solution for Cyprus, which has been divided since 1974.

In his letter to Mr Papandreou, the Turkish prime minister proposed the establishment of a new bilateral platform on a ministerial level to look into the Aegean issue. The letter came shortly after the two men met in Istanbul during Mr Papandreou’s first visit abroad since his election victory last month.

Ankara feels that it can do business with Mr Papandreou. Three years after the crisis surrounding Kardak/Imia, devastating earthquakes in Turkey and in Athens triggered spontaneous public initiatives to help the victims in the respective neighbouring country. These unexpected signs of sympathy between two peoples who had been bitter enemies for much of the 20th century led Mr Papandreou, then Greece’s foreign minister, and Ismail Cem, his Turkish counterpart at the time, to embark on a cautious rapprochement between Ankara and Athens.

The so-called “earthquake diplomacy” has succeeded in making bilateral relations more stable but has failed to solve the main disputes between the two countries. With his letter, Mr Erdogan showed his readiness to go a step further. “We are ready to solve the Aegean problem,” he wrote, according to the Hurriyet newspaper. “Let it be our main aim to let peace reign in the Aegean and to increase the volume of trade between the two countries.”

In the Aegean, the Turkish mainland and Greek islands are sometimes only a few kilometres apart, which has led to difficulties in defining the two countries’ territorial spaces. Turkey fears that Greece wants to turn the Aegean into a Greek-dominated region. Athens has said it wants to extend its territorial waters to 22km, a step that would restrict Turkey’s access to the Aegean, given the proximity of Greek islands that are lined up along the Turkish coast. In 1995, the Turkish parliament proclaimed that Ankara would consider such an extension a casus belli, or a reason to go to war.

For its part, Greece is concerned that Turkey wants to push its maritime sphere of influence to the central Aegean, thereby in effect cutting Greek islands in the region off from the rest of Greece. There are also differences about the delimitation of airspace. Greece claims an airspace of 18.5km, which is not recognised by Turkey. This has led to dangerous encounters of military jets from the two countries. In May 2006, a Turkish and a Greek fighter jet collided in mid-air, killing the Greek pilot.

One factor that could facilitate closer co-operation despite the many unsolved issues is Greece’s support for Turkey’s European Union membership application. Athens says a Turkey disciplined by EU rules would be much easier to deal with, and is therefore in favour of Turkish membership.

“This may sound a little strange to those with the stereotypical view that Greece and Turkey are two countries who share a turbulent past and still have issues pending between them,” Dimitris Droutsas, the Greek deputy foreign minister, told Austrian state radio, according to a transcript of the interview posted on the ministry’s website.

“It is Greece’s view that through the accession process, the necessary reforms can be implemented in Turkey so that Turkey can really become a stable democratic country, with strong democratic institutions ... and – in particular – good neighbourly relations, which are very important to Greece.”

tseibert@thenational.ae