Greece and Turkey: Moving Beyond The Rapprochement Process

The visit by the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, to Ankara and Istanbul on 5-6 February was remarkable for a number of reasons. There was no spectacular breakthrough announced; in fact, a recognition of the status quo was the best that could be expected. Yet, the visit was important because it reflects both the complexities of the bilateral relationship between Greece and Turkey as well as a recognition that its content is shaped by a number of factors that are not necessarily of a bilateral nature.

Let us put everything into context. We find ourselves in the midst of the 20^th year of the rapprochement process between the two countries. This is a process that began after a period of heightened animosity and tensions in September 1999 on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York when George Papandreou and Ismail Cem, the respective foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey at the time, decided to stress strengthened economic and political ties, people to people contacts and a commitment to Turkey’s accession bid. In December 1999, at the Helsinki European Council, Greece in a reversal from its previous positions gave the green light for Turkey’s EU bid. In fact, the European perspective was a fundamental catalyst of the rapprochement process as it suggested that, over time, as Turkey would be negotiating its accession, the normative frameworks of both countries would converge thereby contributing to the lessening of bilateral tensions and, even, conceivably, the peaceful resolution of their differences.

A decade later, in 2009, a new mechanism was added to strengthen the process – the High-Level Political Council which has led to the signing of a number of agreements in sectors such as tourism, health, entrepreneurship, sports. All the while, a number of confidence-building measures of a diplomatic and military nature have also been agreed in an effort to minimize the risks of a potential crisis stemming from divergent positions regarding territorial waters and airspace, the sovereignty of certain islets in the Aegean, and the periodic non-sanctioned actions of deep state or para-state “patriots” in both countries. At the time, too, this initiative was also underpinned for the continued EU accession process of Turkey.

Today, in 2019, the need to keep the process of reaching out alive is even more marked albeit the de facto freeze in Turkey’s EU bid.  Heightened tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean linked to a dynamic hydrocarbons environment there further complicated by the longstanding inability to find a consensual power sharing agreement in Cyprus, a Turkey which seems to redefine its ideological underpinnings away from its decades-long institutional standing within the West towards a still to be defined great autonomous regional role for itself; and an inward-looking Greece due to its decade long financial crisis increasingly worrying about the sustainability of the current modus vivendi across the Aegean, have all contributed to the need for a restart of the process.

The transactional nature of the global order coupled with the evident absence of a committed hegemon in the Western camp and the ever-evolving tensions between Turkey and the United States, as well as Russia’s enhanced activism and presence in Eastern Mediterranean as it seeks to protect its interests in Syria, all weigh heavily on the bilateral relationship. The complicated migration crisis is also a factor to be reckoned in that as long as the Syrian conflict does not come to an end, the migratory pressures from Turkey to the rest of Europe via Greece will not dissipate thereby putting further strain both on the agreed upon regulatory arrangements between the European Union and Turkey as well as those between Greece and Turkey.

Hence, the visit by Alexis Tsipras to Ankara and Istanbul coupled with his longer than expected talks with President Erdogan and the subsequent meetings between the defence ministers of the two countries a few days later to ensure that the confidence-building measures (CBMs) are operational and up to date, are all encouraging signs that Greece’s and Turkey’s governing elites are conscious of the tenuous, if not nebulous, international and regional environment, and have a responsibility to diffuse tensions. The fact that this visit was not marked by the acrimonious public spat that distinguished President Erdogan’s state visit to Greece in December 2017 is a testimony both to Ankara’s and Athens’ desire to stay the course and deter a breakdown of their relations.

The lesson to be learned is that for the rapprochement process to be maintained and to be qualitatively improved both at the level of discourse and substance, it needs to be constantly invested in and reinforced. The fact that Tsipras’ visit was marked by substantial goodwill, may suggest that the two countries may well be on the way to finding the proper mechanisms to keep the rapprochement process on solid ground at least for the next decade. Neither country can afford, nor should aspire to, a breakdown in their bilateral relationship.

Nevertheless, it should be stated that not much will come out of the process if the objective is more of the same – a lessening of tensions and the avoidance of a “hot” incident that may spin out of control with an eye on the forthcoming highly profitable tourist onslaught in both countries which will begin in early May and last for at least six months, if not longer. In other words, the maintenance of the status quo is not sufficient anymore, at a time when the correlation of power regionally and globally is changing. The de facto freeze of Turkey’s EU bid is a case in point. Greece and Turkey need a paradigm shift in their approach, one that entails that the objective is a longer standing one – a Treaty of Peace and Good Neighbourly Relations between the two countries. Only with a clearly defined end game, can relations between the two countries fundamentally improve and move beyond the stated intentions of ensuring the implementation of the Papoulias-Yilmaz Memorandum of Understanding of 1988 which promotes CBMs and fundamentally underpins the beginning of the rapprochement process a decade later and relations since.  

Though we may still be sometime away from the eventuality of a Peace Treaty between the two sides, a concentration on its eventuality might imply that until it becomes a reality, elements of its content may begin to be negotiated, announced, and implemented piecemeal in order to create the conditions for a larger comprehensive framework which focuses on a future looking positive agenda that majoritarian segments of both populations would embrace.

In other words, the dialogue needs to be maintained and intensified at all levels but without a substantial commitment to a concrete endgame that both Athens and Ankara embrace, too much is left to the winds of chance and risk. There is a need to move beyond rapprochement by building upon its acquis.