Greece-Turkey relations reach a critical juncture

A couple of months ago, Turkey's outgoing ambassador to Greece gave an important interview to an established Greek diplomatic journal, touching on a number of crucial issues of bilateral relations, regional challenges, and recent international developments. The journal asked me to write a response. My brief essay (which is reproduced below) was aiming to address the main issues while at the same time avoiding counterpoint as a method in favor of an approach that concentrates on the parameters that define the current -very difficult- state of relations between the two NATO members. I hope it was constructive as well as clearly reflecting my views on the subject.

In view of recent developments, I circulate here the content of that essay for those that may find it interesting and did not have access to the journal. It was published in: GR Diplomatic Review, 11 (November-December 2022).  

Kostas Ant. Lavdas

Can we move in a new direction?

As befits someone who represents a particular angle with diplomatic skill and communicative panache, Ambassador Özügergin makes a number of interesting and substantive points. The comment that follows aims to address some of the issues, avoiding counterpoint as a method in favor of an approach that concentrates on the parameters that define the general spirit of the interview.

The Greek-Turkish relation today constitutes a palimpsest, in part due to the history of the relation itself, and in part due to the complex regional and international environment in its often-surprising continuities and equally baffling discontinuities. I suggest we approach the difficulties in Greek-Turkish relations through a prism that aims to distinguish between three analytical levels. First, the developments, shifts and oscillations in bilateral relations themselves. Unavoidably involving all sorts of fortunate and unfortunate choices, unintended consequences, problems in foreign policies and grievances in domestic politics in both countries. Second, we need to understand the different ways in which the two countries dealt with the end of the Cold War: Turkey’s approach became gradually defined by the relentless pursue of greater strategic autonomy. Question is, how does Ankara pursue its perceived new role and how do successive governments view the effects of the envisaged role on Turkey’s neighborhood. Post-Cold War Turkey aimed to increase influence towards the east and to the south, in some cases – as the Ambassador argues – responding to developing challenges while in other cases by systematically exploiting potential opportunities for increased influence. Somewhat more recently, it has turned its attentions to the west. Finally, third, we will need to take into account the nature of the illiberal Erdogan regime in Ankara and the intensification of its more particular features since the failed coup in 2016.

Both Greece and Turkey joined NATO back in 1952, in what was the first ever enlargement of the transatlantic alliance. In fact, during the Cold War only two other members were able to join: West Germany (1955) and Spain (1982). What is going on between Greece and Turkey?

I have always argued that what is at stake is the ability to nurture conditions that favor a sustainable peace; rather than focusing on tactics that may (or may not) help avoid further instances of conflict. On three occasions in recent decades – in 1987, in 1996, and in 2020 – the two NATO allies found themselves on the brink of war. Different international environments (during the Cold War and after its end), different domestic configurations, different sets of global and regional stimuli.

Moving westwards: from alliance to expansionism? 

Hence the suggestion that we should build our relations “on what the people want” may appear attractive but can hardly be conclusive. Oscillations in public opinion are notorious when it comes to issues that can be easily exploited in the context of an evolving foreign crisis. The Ambassador finds it difficult to understand Greek anxieties regarding the extensive Turkish military build-up in the last thirty-odd years. Of course, as the Ambassador argues, allies do not have to worry about the growth of other allies’ military capabilities. The same should apply to Turkey.

Leaving aside the fact that recent statements by ministers in Ankara seem to be constantly preoccupied with Greece’s recent military modernization and extensive defense procurement programs, the main issue is the fact that Turkey’s official threat of a casus belli is a striking, almost unique example of war threats between allies. In 1995 the Turkish National Assembly granted the Turkish government the perpetual competence to declare war to Greece should Athens decide to extend its territorial waters over 6nmi as it is legally entitled to do.

In fact, extending territorial waters up to 12nmi is a sovereign right according to international law of the sea. Turkey itself has extended its territorial waters to 12 nmi in the Black Sea. Greece established a 10nmi breadth for national airspace back in 1931 and a 6 nmi territorial sea breadth in 1936. For decades, Turkey did not object. Issuing war threats now may galvanize nationalist support at home but it will destroy our bilateral interactions.

Even recently, Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu warned Greece against extending its territorial waters in the Aegean Sea, adding that Ankara “will not accept a fait accompli that has kept Turkey trapped in its coastline.” Indeed, the urge to become a naval power (not just a land power as it has been since the establishment of modern Turkey) has led to the bizarre notion of a “Blue Homeland” with its obvious undertones of an envisaged Lebensraum.

Today, Turkey is a country of 86 million people, with a GDP that – despite the particularly acute economic crisis – is around $850 billion. Greece, with its combination of great advantages and considerable problems, is a different story when it comes, for example, to demographics. Do Turkish elites seriously believe they have something to fear when it comes to Greek-Turkish relations as such? And – not forgetting the economic crisis – will it be easy to convince Turkish citizens that Greece is their problem?   

Yet numerous statements by Turkish officials include a deeply problematic mix of attempts to portray Greece as an aggressor, insults that – simultaneously – depict Greece as a spoiled child of the West and grandiose promises of a neo-Ottoman glory that will reinstate the special status of an imaginary great-power Turkey. The phobic, anti-Western, political-Islamist and nostalgic neo-Ottoman messages that Erdogan keeps transmitting to the Turkish people are manifestations of a trend in political culture that helps open the door to adventurism.

In this context, the notion that Greece’s decisions to maintain defense forces on its islands in the Aegean “cannot have anything to do with the deployment choices for various Turkish military units” is simply absurd. Both the deployment of considerable Turkish assault forces with landing craft across the sea from the Greek islands and the more general climate of Greek-Turkish relations cannot but influence Greece’s decisions regarding the most appropriate ways to defend its islands.

Furthermore, there is no general issue concerning a so-called “demilitarization” of the “Eastern Aegean islands.” In fact, a number of different international agreements apply to Greek islands of the Aegean from North to South. For the status of Limnos and Samothrace we need to examine the 1936 Montreux Treaty and the evolution of its implementation. For the status of Mytilene, Chios, Samos and Ikaria, the 1923 Lausanne Treaty and the evolution of its implementation. And for the status of the Dodecanese, we need to examine the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty and the evolution of its implementation. To the latter treaty, Turkey is not even a signatory state.

But why should Turkish leaders nowadays link this issue (insignificant as it should be among allies) with a direct challenge to the very sovereignty of Greece over Greek islands? Do they seriously believe Greece is planning some sort of extraordinary landing effort from relatively small islands across the sea to the extensive Asia Minor coast? Even leaving aside the Russia-Ukraine war and the obvious need for NATO to project a unified front, how is it at all possible for a member of an alliance to directly challenge the sovereignty of parts of the territory of another member?

Instead of issuing threats to a NATO ally, Ankara should consider a reasonable and clearly defined agenda for talks. Athens has repeatedly signaled a strong preference for dialogue and negotiation with Turkey, provided (a) such negotiation is within the contours of international law and (b) the agenda is focused on mutually accepted areas of dispute, namely the delimitation of continental shelf and EEZ in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has made references to dialogue and negotiation as the preferred route but has been burdening the agenda to include an ever-expanding range of issues, claims and demands.

But there is no endless list of “longstanding and interrelated issues in the Aegean and the Mediterranean [that] cover complex political, legal, economic matters” as the Ambassador chose to put it. Any negotiation between sovereign states (let alone allies) that is not the result of defeat is a focused negotiation. Subsequently, a successful negotiation on a well-defined set of mutually agreed issues may open the door for a future relaxation of relations, so long as one of the parties does not insist on an ever-expanding agenda of differences.  

From Greece’s perspective, the Turkish approach to negotiation is the equivalent to Greece insisting that the agenda for any negotiation should include, e.g., the purge of Greeks from Turkey in the 1950s, the Greek properties, the longer-term decimation of Greek populations in Istanbul and in Asia Minor over time, issues regarding the status of Imbros and Tenedos, while also touching on various other regional issues for good measure. After all, Greeks had a strong presence in Asia Minor for millennia. That sort of approach to an agenda, however, would be a recipe for stalemate and possible conflict. Turkey does just that – expanding the agenda and making it impossible for a neighbor to sit and talk in earnest.

Turkey entertains revisionist, not reformist plans  

Unfortunately, this approach – putting pressure on a neighbor to make them accept our own agenda so that negotiations may commence – has become a characteristic feature of today’s Turkey more generally. While Greek-Turkish relations reached a breaking point on previous occasions, conditions in the current conundrum seem exceptionally dire. This is in part due to an extraordinarily volatile international environment but also, in part, because of the way in which the Erdogan regime evolves. It results in a Turkey that exhibits destabilizing tendencies for the entire region.

It is not only Greek, European, or American observers who consider today’s Turkey an authoritarian power on a revisionist path. Kerem Öktem and Karabekir Akkoyunlu have described the current political situation in Turkey as an “exit from democracy”, a “shift to authoritarianism” and “an Islamic revolution from above” in which Erdogan’s discourse is becoming a narrative of “Islamist nationalism.” (K. Öktem & K. Akkoyunlu, “Exit from democracy: Illiberal governance in Turkey and beyond”, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2016, October). The conversion of the emblematic Greek Orthodox Church of Hagia Sophia, which was a museum for decades and is now a mosque is a case in point. President Erdogan even referred to the “liberation” of the mosque Al-Aqsa in Eastern Jerusalem.

For Hakki Taş, Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism is a “glorification and romanticisation of the Ottoman Era”, with national history “turning into a “battlefield” (H. Taş, “The chronopolitics of national populism”, Identities, 2020, March). In this context, openly revisionist references by the country’s president to Turkey’s “borders of the heart” have been particularly notable. Yet as Mezri Haddad notes, the Turkish side, in finding blame with the Lausanne Treaty, overlooks the fact that Lausanne “expanded Turkish territory compared to the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, to the detriment of Greece and Armenia.” Since 2019, Erdogan has referred to a revision of the Lausanne Treaty as one of the objectives to be implemented in some sort of way in 2023, on the 100th anniversary of its ratification (M. Haddad, “Erdogan mène un projet panislamiste et néo-ottoman qu’il faut combattre de toute urgence”, Le Figaro, 03/03/2020).

In a nutshell, Turkey is becoming a revisionist, not a reformist (let alone a status quo) actor. This has naturally led Greece to rethink the need to tackle power balances in Eastern Mediterranean. Long overdue defense modernization and the accomplishment of a series of steps that would give a certain qualitative edge have become necessary preconditions for peace. Experience suggests that today’s Turkey may be prone to aggression when the regime feels that a window of opportunity presents itself and/or when the balance of power appears to be particularly favorable for Turkey.   

The big picture from a reformist liberal perspective

In a magically improved setting, Turkey would stop trying to project an expansionary influence westwards and Greece would have no quarrel with Turkey’s new conception of itself as an ascending regional power with an enhanced degree of strategic autonomy, so far as this new role did not involve regional destabilization. Such a regime of coexistence would have lots of preconditions, including further strengthening Greece’s deterrent capabilities and reaching a clearer view in Turkey about the country’s relations with the West. Correcting the power balances between the actors in Eastern Mediterranean through a combination of coalitions and smart armaments is a precondition for peace and stability in today’s volatile context.

As regards Turkey, maybe Ankara will decide that Shanghai represents a preferrable future; or that struggling to participate in all possible groups and alliances is a viable option. There are prima facie convincing arguments to the effect that a Turkey that remains in the West may be a better fit for a stable and peaceful Eastern Mediterranean compared to a Turkey embarking on an adventure of radical reconfiguration of its external-cum-internal features.

Assuming Turkey does not opt for such an adventure, there may be real possibilities in Greek-Turkish relations. Several mutually advantageous areas present themselves and could develop further, from trade and expanded cooperation in new forms of commerce to culture and education. To do this, we need a more advanced stage of reciprocity in our relationship.  

To begin with, instead of asking Greece to refrain from exercising its right to legitimate defense, as provided for in UN Charter, to protect Greek territory including the Greek islands of the Aegean, a future Turkish leadership could aspire to a course of action that puts emphasis on areas of cooperation.  

It will of course be difficult for Greek-Turkish relations to break the cycle of conflict and détente. There is no easy fix. Because the cycle has led to a certain entrenchment, moving in a new direction would take time. It would require more than a strong dose of political will or a set of favorable circumstances. It would require a particular combination of mutual and balanced engagement from domestic actors in both countries, and a set of encouraging international and transnational conditions that link the enduring improvement in bilateral relations with broader goals and orientations of the two countries.

Trade relations, as such, do not guarantee a sustainable peace. For a variety of reasons, the same applies to Turkey’s EU future. The ship has sailed for full membership. Among many other reasons, this is also because Turkey has failed to grasp the evolving character of the Union. This explains the grievances about “bilateral” issues between an EU member (like Greece) and another state (like Turkey) influencing the external actor’s interactions with the Union. At any rate, unless Turkey opts for a near-total break with the West in 2023, a special regime – the most likely future for EU-Turkish relations – can only advance peace and stability in the area if it encompasses quite a lot beyond regulating trade and economic links. That would require hammering out a comprehensive agreement between the EU and Turkey that would include provisions touching on the geopolitical status quo and the power balances in Eastern Mediterranean, sufficient to assuage the concerns by EU member states, including Greece and Cyprus, regarding the perceived revisionism that Ankara seems to be pursuing. In turn, reaching such a comprehensive agreement would itself presuppose a more relaxed atmosphere and an improved set of conditions in the first place.

My tentative conclusion is that it is still possible – though not highly probable – to explore ways in which both Greece and Turkey benefit from a strengthening of their mixed strategic capacities in their chosen fields of preferential focus, geographical or political, so long as the benefits accrued from such strengthening do not come to bear on the issue areas of contention between the two. That would at least provide us with a pathway for a course invested with a degree of cautious optimism. If followed for a prolonged period, and conflict is avoided in the meantime, that could lead to more advanced stages of reciprocity. But the pathway is narrow and the conditions that surround us more volatile than in any other period since the end of the Cold War.    

Kostas Ant. Lavdas is Professor of European and Comparative Politics at Panteion University, Athens. He was educated in Greece, Britain, and the USA, has published extensively in English, Greek, and German on EU politics, interest groups and lobbying, comparative foreign policy, and transatlantic relations. Professor Lavdas has held many academic and policy-related posts in Greece and abroad.