Greece and Turkey: Can They Mend Fences?

Marcia Christoff Kurop

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 1998

Article preview: first 500 of 2,501 words total.

Summary:  Greece is adopting a more internationalist outlook, and Turkey will have to follow suit if it wants to be part of Europe. Business ties between the two are a good start.

Marcia Christoff Kurop is currently at work on a book on Muslim intellectuals. She is a former special correspondent for The Wall Street Journal Europe based in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Thessaloniki, Greece, and U.N. Correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor.

Relations with Turkey remain the ultimate test of Greece's ability to chart a foreign policy that best serves its interests rather than simply inflames old passions over the two countries' disputes in the Aegean Sea and on the island of Cyprus. Their long-standing hostility, marked by mutual suspicion and distrust, is of more than parochial concern given the strategic importance of the region, lying at the crossroads of the Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe. Compared with Greece's past regional controversies, its disputes with Turkey are more vast and complicated-political problems in essence, but political problems underscored and overwhelmed by historical bad blood, incessant second-guessing of motives, and high-pitched rhetoric that plays well in each side's press. These two countries, for all their past intermingling and cross-cultural ties, are simply different animals, psychologically and politically.

In time, the prospects for improving relations may grow because of positive developments on the Greek side. A change of government, a new awareness of the benefits of European integration, and improved relations with Balkan neighbors all contribute to a more constructive Greek attitude.

Since the election of Kostas Simitis as prime minister in January 1996, the somewhat aggressive image and tenor of contemporary Greek politics, embodied by the late prime minister, Andreas Papandreou, have changed, and with them many obstructive aspects of the country's domestic and foreign policy. Simitis, not without criticism or controversy, has tried to rid Greek politics of the charismatic, sometimes brazen type of leadership that saw domestic and foreign policy veer precariously between populist sentiment and long-term strategic interests. At last Greece may have grown into political maturity, which would serve its goal of gaining a more secure foothold in Europe.

For the first time Greece understands that it is part of Europe and that its political and economic success is wholly dependent on the extent to which it chooses to cultivate its relationship with the European Union. This realization has alleviated Greece's pronounced insecurity over its dual European and Balkan identity, which bred a defensive, sometimes antagonistic attitude toward its regional neighbors and an "illegitimate child" status within the EU. The two pillars of the European orientation are Greece's commitment to the Maastricht Treaty's standards for economic convergence and its attempts to foster better regional ties.

Such new thinking has appeared on several fronts. Greece's two main political parties, Simitis' Panhellenic Socialist Movement and New Democracy, representing, respectively, the mainstream left and right of Greek politics, have generally aligned their domestic and foreign policy platforms. Opposition to Simitis is confined to a small parliamentary bloc of Papandreou die-hards and has consisted mainly of criticism of current economic austerity measures and the prime minister's more liberal outlook toward Turkey. The appointment of younger, multilingual cabinet members such as Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos also reflects the European push of the Simitis government. Pangalos represents an internationally minded new view of Turkey, even in the midst of the two countries' deteriorating relations. "We Greeks," Pangalos said early last year, ...

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