The Greek administration is keeping its eyes wide open ahead of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis’s official visit to Ankara on Wednesday – from which no major developments are expected – in order to ensure it does not turn into a complete disaster.
The Interior and Defense ministries, diplomats and secret service officials are on the alert and will remain so until the visit is over, on the lookout for any provocation. Crisis-response scenarios even go as far as cutting the visit short if necessary, getting the prime minister out of Turkey if any particularly unpleasant incident occurs.
The fears are not entirely unjustified, given Turkey’s stance during a previous visit there by former Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis in April 2005, during which there was an incident in the Aegean involving coast guard vessels off the islet of Imia and Turkish fighter jets flying over the island of Andros.
According to diplomatic sources, a similar act now would be taken as an outright insult to the prime minister, not as an individual but in his official capacity, and would provoke a similar response.
Sources close to the prime minister and the Foreign Ministry emphasize that the visit, the first by a Greek prime minister in some 50 years, is not expected to result in anything of major importance.
“It is a visit that had to take place at some time, in reciprocation for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Athens in 2004. The goal is always to improve relations. In recent years there has been very good progress in economic and business cooperation and we believe it is time to make progress in political relations,” said a senior diplomat. “For that to happen, there needs to be political will on both sides.”
According to the same source, Greece is aiming for dialogue in an attempt to exploit every window of opportunity, given that it believes it has nothing to fear since its positions are based on the provisions of international law.The belief that no spectacular results are expected from the meeting has to do with Turkey’s recent stance, particularly since the announcement that the visit was scheduled for January.
Diplomatic sources say that in interpreting messages from Turkey they have discerned a “political irritation” on Erdogan’s part, which they believe has been clearly apparent in two cases: In the position he took at his meeting with his counterpart in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski, regarding Greece’s dispute over FYROM’s use of the name “Macedonia,” and in his statements early last week that it had been a mistake for the European Union to agree to Cyprus’s EU accession as the Republic of Cyprus.
Erdogan’s statements, bolstered by the cultivation of tension around the Imia islets and a visit by the Turkish Embassy’s military attache to Thrace, have cast their shadow over preparations for the final details of the visit.
Diplomats say that it would certainly be preferable for the visit to take place in a better climate, but if Ankara wants tension, it can create it any moment for any number of reasons.
On the basis of “nothing to fear,” Greece is heading for the talks in Ankara with an open mind, with particular emphasis on the meeting scheduled between the two prime ministers and foreign ministers. The Greek delegation believes that it can be assured of some kind of commitment to step up exploratory talks on the continental shelf. The Greek side will also raise all the issues of interest to it but it expects nothing tangible to emerge on important issues such as the Aegean or Cyprus. With regard to the latter in particular, there is a considerable difference of views. Greece and Cyprus are in favor of promoting the July 8 agreement, while Turkey appears to want to revert to the proposal by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, possibly with some amendments.
Greece may not be afraid of dialogue, but there are some concerns that the visit could be spoiled if the Greek delegation is presented with issues such as the Muslim minority and the election of muftis in Thrace, or even the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In that event, the scenario under consideration is for a “response” by the prime minister either in the form of a statement or within the context of a speech.