Valuing the freedom of land, sea and air 20 years after a crisis that threatened war

Peaceful afternoons on the beach near Rethymnon are seldom interrupted by sonic booms and overflights, unlike 20 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

I have been coming to this part of Greece since the 1980s. Today, Rethymnon is a relatively quiet area for holidays. With the long sandy stretch for sand that continues for miles east of the town, it is a family-friendly place.

There are no signs offering cheap beer to lager louts, as I have seen at bars further east in places such as Hersonissos and Malia, and the resort areas east of Rethymnon are even quieter at the moment because school holidays have yet to start in Britain.

It is easy to fall asleep on the beach and to be undisturbed in the sunshine.

It was not always so peaceful. Not because of loud lager louts, not because Crete was attracting the wrong sort of tourists, and certainly not because of bad management on anyone’s part. But because of the threat of war.

An afternoon’s snooze on the beach was regularly interrupted in the 1980s and the 1990s by the sonic booms of overflying Greek air force jets, preparing or returning from buzzing their Turkish counterparts over the blue waters of the Aegean and the Mediterranean seas.

It almost came to a full-scale war between Greece and Turkey 20 years ago, and all because of a dispute over who owned the two tiny uninhabited rocky islets of Imia. I was flown into the middle of it all in 1996, and ended up as a part of a press posse that was threatened with coming under fire from the Turkish navy.

The dispute back in 1996 cost the lives of three crew members of a Greek Navy helicopter who died during a mission, and 20 years later, despite improved relations between Athens and Ankara in the intervening decades, many Greeks have not forgotten this tense time in modern Greek history.

The crisis had international leaders scrambling to urge bot sides not to come to blows over what was derided as a pile of rocks. But Greece insisted they were “Greek rocks,” and Athens refused to back down as Ankara tried to assert Turkish sovereignty. Greeks were reminded all too easily of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus over 20 years earlier on 20 July 1974.

Windmills at the entrance to the harbour in Rhodes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Imia is part of the Dodesanese islands, which are dripping with history and oozing with culture: Kos, where Hippocrates formulated the foundations of modern medicine; Patmos, where Saint John the Divine wrote the Book of Revelation; Kalymnos, Leros and Simi, with their neo-classical mansions; and Rhodes, where the giant Colossus once straddled the harbour of Mandhraki, holding aloft the flame of freedom that inspired the Statue of Liberty.

At the crossroads of three continents, this island chain was once ruled by Alexander the Great and Ptolemy; it has been occupied by the Romans, the Crusaders, the Venetians, the Knights of Saint John, the Turks, the Italians and Nazi Germany. Only with the end of World War II was it finally handed over by Britain and incorporated into the Greek state in 1947.

Today, only 26 of the Dodecanese islands are inhabited: the largest, Rhodes, has about 100,000 people, but most have only a few hundred residents or less, and there are only 79 people left on Pserimos.

The large Turkish minorities in Rhodes and Kos and the mosques and minarets still dotting the skylines of many islands are ever-present reminders that Turkey occupied the Dodecanese for almost 400 years, from 1522 to 1912. Turkey is Greece’s nearest neighbour, and on many islands you can feel it is almost possible to touch the Turkish coast with its harbours and towns, houses and hotels.

On 29 December 1995, Turkey said the Imia islets were Turkish territory, registered in the prefecture of Bodrum. The dispute began when a Turkish cargo ship, Figen Akat ran ashore on the islets and had to be salvaged. It turned out that maps of were showing conflicting claims of the islets by Greece and Turkey, and there was a conflict between the Turkish captain and the Greek authorities over who was responsible for the salvage operation.

For more than 60 years, Turkey had accepted the maritime boundaries in the Aegean, defined by treaties and agreements with the Italians in 1923 and 1932, and ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1947. The boundaries were never challenged by Ankara until that December. But as Turkey faced a major political crisis with the unexpected electoral success of the Islamic Welfare Party, the Foreign Ministry in Ankara claimed for the first time that Imia was part of the Turkish province of Mugla.

The official response of Greece came on 9 January 1996. The then-Greek Foreign Minister, Theodoros Pangalos, sent a reply to Turkey claiming an indisputable Greek sovereignty over the islets. The dispute was escalated when the Mayor of the Greek island of Kalymnos and a priest landed on the islets on 26 January and raised a Greek flag on the rocky outcrop.

Tensions escalated, and on 27 January Turkish journalists from the daily Hurriyet landed on the largest of the two Imia islets, tore down the blue and white Greek flag and hoisted the red and white star and crescent of Turkey.

Four days later, Turkish troops landed on the smaller rocky outcrop. Tensions heightened as Greek, Turkish and NATO forces sailed to the islets. At dawn on 31 January, a Greek navy helicopter flying over Imia said reported that Turkish troops had landed on the islets. The helicopter then crashed in mysterious circumstances. The crash was blamed on bad weather conditions, but some reports said the weather reports amounted to a mutual cover-up to hide that it was shot down by Turkish fire.

Both Athens and Ankara were accused of concealing what really happened to prevent war. The two countries had been on the brink of war when President Clinton intervened and the Turkish troops withdrew.

At the time, I was the Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times and I found myself in the middle of this crisis. I flew to Athens to interview the new Greek Prime Minister, Costas Simitis, his Foreign Minister, Theodoros Pangalos, and other Greek cabinet ministers.

A few days later I was one among a small group of about two dozen journalists who travelled from Athens and boarded the NV Nissos in Kos Harbour, close to the Plane Tree of Hippocrates and the Mosque of Hatzi Hassan.

At the time, the NV Nissos offered day trips to Turkey on Saturdays and Sundays, leaving Kos at 9 a.m. and returning at 5 p.m. But this was to be no pleasure cruise. We were reminded of an ever-present fear of an invasion from Anatolia, 5 km across the stretch of water. The local people were talking in terms of “when the Turks come”, not “if”.

With blue skies and blue seas, it could have been an idyllic summer trip. Apart from goat herds and environmentalists, few people ever bothered to visit the more remote rocks off the coast of Kos, Kalymnos, Kalolymnos and Pserimos. The crew took down the sign reading “Turkey” as we sailed off for the islets of Imia or Limnia, two flat pancakes less than two miles from Kalolymnos, almost 2½ miles from the Turkish island of Cavus, and over three miles from the western-most Turkish coast on the peninsula of Bodrum.

The Greek naval frigate HS Limnos, which had taken part in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, was fresh back from the Adriatic and had offered to take us out to look at the rocks. But before we left, Turkey protested and summoned the Greek Ambassador in Ankara, Dimitrios Nezeritis, to warn against the media trip.

It was no idle warning: two days earlier, a Greek coastguard vessel and a Turkish patrol boat had collided in Greek waters, a mile south of Imia.

As we sailed out of Kos, the military tension was palpable and visible. Greek and Turkish jets buzzed overhead sporadically, a Greek coastguard vessel and a navy ship were within sight and, in the distance, we could catch a glimpse of a ship with Turkish naval markings.

Costas Bikas, the Foreign Ministry spokesman from Athens on board the Nissos, insisted there was nothing out of the ordinary about the cruise and that it was none of Ankara’s business. But the Turks made it their business. As the Greek and Turkish jet fighters swooped low over the area, the Turkish foreign ministry took a group of foreign and local journalists out from Bodrum. Once again, there were new Turkish claims to the islets known to the Turks as Kardak – by Defence Minister Oltan Sunguklu and by naval spokesman Ali Kurunahmut, who told cruising journalists: “Kardak is a Turkish islet and we are in Turkish waters.”

Trailing both groups were reporters and camera crews from the Greek and Turkish press and television. The crisis had moved from territorial claims and counter claims to cruise and counter cruise for journalists in the Aegean. As Imia faded out of sight, we followed past Pserimos, Kalolymnos, Leros and Kalymnos, through the straits separating Kalymnos and Telendhos, into Pothia, the port harbour of Kalymnos – names that once tripped off the tongues of backpackers in the 1970s.

As we disembarked at the dockside in Pothia, the microphones and cameras crowded into our faces: the foreign media had become the message.

The rocky island of Kalymnos is famous for its traditional sponge fishing; its fame in the past rested on Homer’s reference in the Iliad to the ships from the “Kalyndian Islands” taking part in the Trojan wars. That day, we felt war remained an ever-present threat to the peace of the islanders and their sponge fishers.

The Nissos returned to Kos to prepare for Sunday’s day trippers to Bodrum, and a launch from the Hellenic Coast Guard took us out from the harbour to the navy frigate Limnos, with its crew waiting to take us on to Rhodes. For four hours, we watched the crew tracking Turkish moves in the Aegean sea and skies, before our odyssey came to an end and Rhodes came into sight with its mediaeval castles and palaces, mosques and minarets and three harbours.

Two deer stand at each end of Mandhrki where the Colossus once straddled the entrance to the harbour, with ships passing through its towering legs. A small tug, the Herakles, took us ashore, reminding us of the apt inscription that once graced Colossus, praising the lovely gift of unlettered freedom. “For to those who spring from the race of Herakles, dominion is a heritage both on land and sea.”

The crisis was a temporary boost at home to Turkey’s Tansu Ciller as she searched (in vain) for a coalition partner to keep her in power. But it threatened to bring down Costas Simitis, Theodoros Pangalos and their Pasok government in Athens. Both sides agreed to withdraw their forces from the area around Imia and return to the status quo ante, although Ms Ciller continued to press Turkey’s claims to 3,000 Aegean islands – the sum total of all islands in Greek waters.

After intense pressure from the US, Greek and Turkish government removed their military forces from Imia. The territorial issue has remained unresolved since then. Imia and other islets in the Aegean are considered as “grey zones” of undetermined sovereignty by Turkey.

When I returned to Crete a few weeks later, my interviews with the Greek media and my appearances on Greek television became a topic of conversation over lunch with Greek friends on the island. Overhead, the sonic booms of fighter jets continued to break the peace of afternoon naps by the pool or on the beach.

When I returned a second time from Greece, The Irish Times published a major feature on my adventures on this day 20 years ago, 6 July 1996. I think the headline ‘Dropping Ankara in Rhodes,’ with its intended pun, was written by the then Design Editor, Andy Barclay.

The casual freedom of land and sea, to hop from one island to the next, is part of the lure of a holiday in the sun in many parts of Greece. But it is a freedom that comes with a price, a freedom that is valued by the local Greeks, and a freedom that is denied 20 years later to many refugees who come in search of it as they make the difficult passage from the coast of Turkey to the islands of the Dodecanese.

Greece stresses need to safeguard borders

By Patrick Comerford,
Foreign Desk Editor

The Greek Foreign Minister, Mr Theodoros Pangalos, says the EU needs “an efficient, common foreign and defence policy capable of safeguarding the external borders, the independence and the security of the Union”.

The institutions of the EU must be based on “institutional equality and unity, without discriminations or differentiations,” he said.

In an interview with The Irish Times before the Dublin summit, Mr Pangalos also described EU membership for Cyprus as “a priority issue for Greek foreign policy”.

However, he said “it should made clear” to Ankara that Turkey has no veto over Cypriot membership, and said the EU and Cyprus should not be “hostages” to Turkey.

“Greece wants good relations with our neighbour Turkey,” he said. “Turkey, however, pursues an offensive policy in the Aegean that endangers stability and security in the region.”

Mr Pangalos said Turkey continues to violate the terms of its Customs Union agreement with the EU and is questioning the territorial integrity of the EU by challenging “Greek territorial integrity over the Imia islets … and the sovereignty of an indefinite number of islands or islets in the Aegean”.

Calling for a “new security architecture” for the European continent, he said acts by a third country against a member state and disrespect for human rights should influence EU policy on an applicant state. “European integration should be built upon the principles of democracy, solidarity, cohesion and social justice,” he said.

“We do not wish to impede in any way the relations of Turkey with the European Union, provided that Turkey abides by the obvious conditions of respect of … international law and human rights,” Mr Pangalos said.

“I do not see how any European could have a different opinion,” he said, asking: “Is there anyone that believes that relations with this country should develop while citizens, journalists and even children or sexually abused by the police, as has been recently reported by Amnesty International.”

Greece will be “in the second group of countries” to take part in the planned single currency, the Greek Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, said yesterday in The Hague.

This interview was first published in The Irish Times on 13 December 1996

Cyprus problem looks increasingly for EU solution

World View
Patrick Comerford

THE Irish Ambassador, Mr Liam Rigney, is in Cyprus this weekend for talks in advance of a visit to Cyprus later in the month by Mr Kester Heaslip, the Irish diplomat who is the EU’s special envoy charged with trying to negotiate a settlement to the island's divisions.

The past few months have seen tension heightened, with five people killed on the “Green Line” since June and a respected Turkish Cypriot journalist murdered in the occupied area.

Tensions were activated once again this week when the Turkish Cypriot authorities sealed off the sole crossing point on the divided island to 500 mostly elderly Greek Cypriots known as the “enclaved” and a handful of Maronites 187 in all living in the north. On the other side of the buffer zone, in the face of opposition from the government and from the UN peace keeping forces, a right wing Greek Cypriot deputy, Marios Matsakis, has been protesting at the Ledra Palace crossing point in Nicosia, trying to dissuade tourists from crossing to the north.

The provocative action by Mr Matsakis has continued each day despite personal pleas from the Cypriot Foreign Minister, Mr Alecos Michaelides, and the Justice Minister, Mr Alecos Evangelou, and the Turkish Cypriots are threatening to resume their action on Monday.

The Cypriot government’s anxiety about the recent escalation in tension on the island is understandable under any circumstances. But that anxiety has another agenda too:

Cyprus has been promised that negotiations on its application for full membership of the European Union will open six months after the Inter Governmental Conference ends. That date was promised to Malta too, but the recent Maltese election has seen a Labour government returned to power on the promise of withdrawing Malta's application to join the EU. The Cypriot government is anxious to ensure that no excuses should get away from speeding up the process of negotiations with Cyprus.

Cyprus qualifies for EU membership according to many criteria. According to the Commission opinion on the application for membership, the geographical position of Cyprus and deep lying bonds have for 2,000 years “located the island at the very fount of European culture an civilisation”.

The island has witnessed an economic miracle since Cyprus began to recover from the Turkish invasion of 1974. Annual per capita income now stands at $15,470, higher than some EU member states. With an annual growth rate at 6 per cent over the past seven years, inflation at 2.6 per cent, virtually no unemployment, and a budget deficit at 1.3 per cent of the GDP, Cyprus compares more than favourably with many of its prospective EU partners.

This economic success story is mainly due to tourism. In addition, agricultural output has returned to the pre-invasion levels, although 37 per cent of the island is still Turkish occupied. Shipping too has played a large part in the economic miracle, and the island has the world’s fourth largest registered shipping fleet.

Prof Christopher Pissarides, of the London School of Economics, points out that among Mediterranean countries only France and Italy are richer, and the per capita income equals that in Spain. At a recent conference organised by the LSE and the Hellenic Centre in London, the Minister of Finance, Mr Christos Chrstodolou, pointed out that Cyprus meets the Maastricht criteria for economic and monetary union.

The same economic boom has not been enjoyed in the north. According to Mr Michalis Attalides, the Permanent Delegate of Cyprus to the EU, GDP per capita in the north is three or four times lower, and inflation is running at about 60 per cent. According to Mr Attalides there are no insurmountable obstacles" to membership.

The large off-shore sector, which has come to play an important part in the economy in recent years, may prove a difficult one for Cyprus to abandon as the price for accession, although Mr Christodolou points out that Ireland too benefits from a large offshore sector. However, as Dr Pissarides put it bluntly at the conference, “beggars can't be choosers”.

Security and the continued division of the island remain the major political concerns for EU negotiators. In recent weeks, the Cypriot government has been trying to send out signals that is willing to take account of feelings and anxieties in northern Cyprus as the accession negotiations proceed. Mr Michaelides, who has personally appealed to Mr Matsakis to end his provocative protests, told the conference at the LSE: “You cannot change geography. We have to talk to our neighbours, and try to make friends.”

The European Commission official charged with negotiations with Cyprus, Malta and Turkey, Mr Serge Andre Abou, believes that as the negotiations open it will be important to provide assurances for the Turkish Cypriots that accession will not reinforce their feelings of isolation.

Cypriots fear that by refusing to take part in negotiations on the island, the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey will be able to exercise an effective veto on Cyprus joining the EU, knowing Britain and other states will oppose Cyprus joining without an agreement on a bizonal, bicommunal, federal republic.

Mr Yannos Kranidiotis, the Greek representative at the IGC, is anxious to point out to Turkish Cypriots that through EU membership for the whole island they would gain economically and see an end to their isolation, the Cyprus problem poisons relations between Turkey and Greece, he says, and he hints that with a Turkish contribution to a settlement Athens could facilitate closer relations with the EU that would benefit Ankara.

But he sees a great injustice if Turkish intransigence now prevents Cypriot accession: “Cyprus should not be penalised a second time for Turkish intervention.”

Next Friday, the Turkish Cypriots mark the 13th anniversary of their unilateral declaration of independence, but their breakaway “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” is recognised only by Ankara, and survives only with the presence of 30,000 Turkish mainland forces. Whether this anniversary continues to be marked, or whether northern Cyprus ends its international pariah status may depend not so much on the intensity of protests at the Ledra Palace, but on the intensity of diplomatic efforts by Mr Heaslip and other international negotiators.

This ‘World View’ opinion column was published in ‘The Irish Times’ on Saturday 9 November 1996

Dropping Ankara in Rhodes

By Patrick Comerford

Early summer is the time to go island hopping in the Aegean. The harbours of Greek islands such as Rhodes, Kos and Kalimnos are lined with small ferries, fishing boats and caiques offering day trips to neighbouring islands in the Dodecanese, and to Greece's nearest neighbour, Turkey.

From Agathonissi in the north to Kastellorizo in the far south east, the Dodecanese is a chain of over 1,000 islands, islets and rocky outcrops at the end of the eastern Mediterranean, strung out like a necklace along the west and south-west coast of Asia Minor.

These are islands dripping with history and oozing with culture: Kos, where Hippocrates formulated the foundations of modern medicine; Patmos, where St John the Divine wrote the Book of Revelation; Kalimnos, Leros and Simi, with their neo-classical mansions; and Rhodes, where the giant Colossus once straddled the harbour of Mandhraki, holding aloft the flame of freedom that inspired the Statue of Liberty.

The casual freedom of land and sea, to hop from one island to the next, is part of the lure of a holiday in the sun in this part of Greece. But it’s a freedom that comes with a price, and a freedom valued by the local Greeks. At the crossroads of three continents, this island chain was once ruled by Alexander the Great and Ptolemy; it has been occupied by the Romans, the Crusaders, the Venetians, the Knights of St John, the Turks, the Italians and Nazi Germany. Only with the end of the second World War was it finally handed over by Britain and incorporated into the Greek state in 1947.

Today, only 26 of the Dodecanese islands are inhabited: the largest, Rhodes, has about 100,000 people, but most have only a few hundred residents or less, and there are only 79 people left on Pserimos.

The large Turkish minorities in Rhodes and Kos and the mosques and minarets still dotting the skylines of many islands are ever present reminders that Turkey occupied the Dodecanese for almost 400 years, from 1522 to 1912. Turkey is Greece’s nearest neighbour, and from many islands you can feel it’s almost possible to touch the Turkish coast with its harbours and towns, houses and hotels.

The fishermen and ferry operators supplement their income during these months with day trips from Rhodes to Marmaris, from Simi to Data, and from Kos to Bodrum, site of the ancient world’s Hallicarnassus and its Mausoleum.

On Saturdays and Sundays, the NV Nissos offers day trips to Turkey, leaving Kos at 9 a.m. and returning at 5 p.m. But as a small group of not more than two dozen journalists boarded the Nissos in Kos Harbour, close to the Plane Tree of Hippocrates and the Mosque of Hatzi Hassan, we were reminded of the ever-present fear of an invasion from Anatolia, five kilometres across the stretch of water: local people talk in terms of “when the Turks come”, not “if”.

With blue skies and blue seas, it could have been an idyllic summer trip. Apart from goat herds and environmentalists, few people ever bother to visit the more remote rocks off the coast of Kos, Kalimnos, Kalolimnos and Pserimos. The crew took down the sign reading “Turkey” as we sailed off for the islets of Imia or Limnia, two flat pancakes less than two miles from Kalolimnos, almost 2½ miles from the Turkish island of Cavus, and over three miles from the western-most Turkish coast on the peninsula of Bodrum.

The Greek naval frigate HS Limnos, which had taken part in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, was fresh back from the Adriatic and had offered to take us out to look at the rocks. But before we left, Turkey protested and summoned the Greek ambassador in Ankara, Dimitrios Nezeritis, to warn against the media trip.

It was no idle warning – two days earlier, a Greek coastguard vessel and a Turkish patrol boat had collided in Greek waters, a mile south of Imia.

For more than 60 years, Turkey had accepted the maritime boundaries in the Aegean, defined by treaties and agreements with the Italians in 1923 and 1932, and ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1947. The boundaries were never challenged by Ankara until last December.

But as Turkey faced a major political crisis with the unexpected electoral success of the Islamic Welfare Party, the Foreign Ministry in Ankara claimed for the first time that Imia was part of the Turkish province of Mugla. Tension began to escalate and on January 27th Turkish journalists from the daily Hurriyet landed on the largest of the two Imia islets, tore down the blue and white Greek flag and hoisted the red and white star and crescent of Turkey.

Four days later, Turkish troops landed on the smaller rocky outcrop. The two countries were on the brink of war when President Clinton intervened and the Turkish troops withdrew.

The crisis was a temporary boost at home to Turkey’s Tansu Ciller as she searched (in vain) for a coalition partner to keep her in power. But it threatened to bring down the new Greek Prime Minister, Costas Simitis; his Foreign Minister, Theodoros Pangalos; and the Pasok government in Athens. Both sides agreed to withdraw their forces from the area around Imia and return to the status quo ante, although Ms Ciller continued to press Turkey’s claims to 3,000 Aegean islands – the sum total of all islands in Greek waters.

As we sailed out of Kos, the military tension was palpable and visible. Greek and Turkish jets buzzed overhead sporadically, a Greek coastguard vessel and a navy ship were within sight and, in the distance, we could catch a glimpse of a ship with Turkish naval markings.

Costas Bikas, the Foreign Ministry spokesman from Athens on board the Nissos, insisted there was nothing out of the ordinary about the cruise and it was none of Ankara’s business. But the Turks made it their business. As the Greek and Turkish jet fighters swooped low over the area, the Turkish foreign ministry took a group of foreign and local journalists out from Bodrum. Once again, there were new Turkish claims to the islets known to the Turks as Kardak – by Defence Minister Oltan Sunguklu and by naval spokesman Ali Kurunahmut, who told cruising journalists: “Kardak is a Turkish islet and we are in Turkish waters.”

Trailing both groups were reporters and camera crews from the Greek and Turkish press and television. The crisis had moved from territorial claims and counter claims to cruise and counter cruise for journalists in the Aegean. As Imia faded out of sight, we followed past Psenmos, Kalolimnos, Leros and Kalimnos, through the straits separating Kalimnos and Telendhos, into Pothia, the port harbour of Kalimnos – names that once tripped off the tongues of backpackers in the 1970s.

As we disembarked at the dockside in Pothia, the microphones and cameras crowded into our faces: the foreign media had become the message.

The rocky island of Kalimnos is famous for its traditional sponge fishing; its fame in the past rested on Homer’s reference in the Iliad to the ships from the “Kalyndian Islands” taking part in the Trojan wars. Today, war remains an ever-present threat to the peace of the islanders and their sponge fishers.

The Nissos returned to Kos to prepare for Sunday’s day trippers to Bodrum, and a launch from the Hellenic coastguard took us out from the harbour to the navy frigate Timnos, with its crew waiting to take us on to Rhodes. For four hours we watched the crew tracking Turkish moves in the Aegean sea and skies, before our odyssey came to an end and Rhodes came into sight with its medieval castles and palaces, mosques and minarets and three harbours.

Two deer stand at each end of Mandhrki where the Colossus once straddled the entrance to the harbour, with ships passing through its towering legs. A small tug, the Herakles, took us ashore, reminding us of the apt inscription that once graced Colossus, praising the lovely gift of unlettered freedom. “For to those who spring from the race of Herakles, dominion is a heritage both on land and sea.”

This feature was published in ‘The Irish Times’ on Saturday 6 July 1996

Athens seeks EU interest in bringing peace to the Aegean

World View
Patrick Comerford

When the Tanaiste Mr Spring meets the Greek Foreign Minister, Mr Theodoros Pangalos, next Friday, his main efforts are likely to be directed at encouraging the Greeks to lift their veto on Meda, the Mediterranean Economic Development Aid programme being blocked by Athens because of proposals to include Turkey.

Meda involves 13 Mediterranean countries, but Greece is try ding to devise a formula so that all of them, except Turkey, receive the funds.

The two Greek priorities are the continuing territorial claims being made in the Aegean by Ankara, and Greek hopes that the Irish presidency will see a new initiative on Cyprus. The Cypriots have been promised that talks on the accession of Cyprus will open when the IGC concludes. They hope to become full members, along with Malta, by 1999 or 2000. There is intense speculation now that an Irish diplomat will be appointed as the EU's special negotiator on Cyprus.

Cyprus is still the key to Greek relations with Turkey, according to Professor Yannis Valinakis of the University of Athens, who said recently. “Progress in Cyprus would greatly facilitate Greek Turkish relations and contribute to the relaxation of regional tensions.” In recent days, the tension between Greece and Turkey has eased in the Aegean, with both sides agreeing to suspend naval manoeuvres this summer to avoid any clashes.

Mr Pangalos says Athens wants to suspend manoeuvres to avoid any incident with Turkey, and the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, says. “Our government believes that measures like this create an atmosphere conducive to solving the problems between Turkey and Greece.”

But Greek Turkish relations are at their lowest ebb since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and Athens and Ankara recognise the tension could be damaging to tourism in both Greece and Turkey.

In Athens, Mr Spring will be meeting a more confident Mr Pangalos, whose position has been firmly consolidated since the Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, won a tough internal party battle to become president of the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok).

The prime minister’s two key allies in the party battle were Mr Pangalos and the Development Minister, Dr Vasso Papandreou, who can now expect promotion in a cabinet shuffle, possibly ahead of Mr Spring’s arrival. Both are experienced negotiators when it comes to European affairs: Ms Papandreou is a former social affairs commissioner, and Mr Pangalos was a tough negotiator as European affairs minister.

In recent weeks, Mr Pangalos has taken a tough stand against the multiplying Turkish claims. The Aegean neighbours came to the brink of open hostilities in January after a Turkish landing party took possession of the tiny islet of Imia. The claims have persisted since, with the Greeks demanding Ankara go to the International Court and the Turks demanding that Athens should agree to negotiations on the Turkish claims.

The Turks added to their claims at the beginning of the summer, when Ankara indicated it regarded the small island of Gavdos off the south coast of Crete and 400 km south-west of the Turkish coast as disputed territory or a “grey area”.

Last month, the Turkish daily Millyet identified three more “orphan islands” in the Dodecanese to join the growing list of islands regarded by the Turkish government as grey areas, Farmakonisi, Kalolimnos and Agathonisi.

The report said the Turkish Foreign Ministry would openly question Greek sovereignty on the islands if Greece exercised its right under the Law of the Sea Treaty to extend its territorial waters from six to 12 miles.

It is the view of Mr Simitis that Turkey openly disputes all legal documents and international treaties concerning Greek titles in the Aegean islands. This creates another source of for the region's stability. He beleives Turkey is openly disputing the Lausanne Treaty which settled the borders between Turkey and Greece in 1922.

At a Pasok party meeting in Patras, Mr Pangalos, known for his colourful turn of phrase, accused Turkey of Nazi like tactics in the Aegean and compared Turkey’s claims to the islands with Hitler’s claims to Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Gavdos has been part of the modern Greek state since Crete was incorporated into it in 1913. Any question mark over the status of Gavdos raises the spectre of Turkish claims to all Ottoman possessions prior to the outbreak of the first World War claims that could be devastating throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. But Turkey's claims to Imia and its attitude to the status of the Dodecanese islands of Farmakonisi, Kalolimnos and Agathonisi are equally absurd.

The Dodecanese were taken by Italy in 1912. Under the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, the Dodecanese were ceded to Greece along with Smyrna and part of the Anatolian hinterland, but the treaty was never ratified, and with the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 the islands were placed under Italian sovereignty.

The Italian administration attempted a forcible Latinisation of the people, and spoken Greek and Greek Orthodox observances were banned in public from 1920. But the Italians were in no doubt that the islands were part of Greece.

In 1932, Italy and Turkey signed two agreements on the delimitation of the maritime frontier between the Dodecanese and the Turkish coast.

The first agreement, on January 4th, sets down the exact maritime frontier between the Turkish coast and the island of Kastellorizo in the south east Dodecanese. The second agreement, on December 28th, 1932, marked the maritime frontier between the Turkish coast and the rest of the Dodecanese. Both sides immediately implemented the agreements and abided by their provisions.

The Germans troops who surrendered to the Greeks on the island of Symi on May 8th, 1945, were the last Germans to lay down their arms. As one commentator noted, in their surrender, even the Nazis recognised the Dodecanese as Greek. Under the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, the islands were formally transferred to Greek sovereignty.

Official maps of the Italian government in 1936, the official Turkish air and maritime navigation maps in 1953, and more recently maps from the US air force in 1994, the US Defence Mapping Agency, the Russian navy, the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the Turkish Geographical Service, and the EU’s Corine environmental programme all show Turkey’s acceptance of the 1932 agreements under which Imia, Farmakonisi, Kalolimnos and Agathonisi are marked clearly as Italian, and later Greek, territory.

Athens has been disappointed with the EU’s failure to support Greece against the Turkish claims. Mr Pangalos has argued that the release of EU aid to Turkey would encourage Turkish “expansionism”. Mr Simitis points out that Greece is the only European country facing an open threat against its territory not only in the Aegean but its entire borderline.

With the future of Ms Ciller’s coalition pact with Mr Necmettin Erbakan and his Islamic Welfare Party now precarious and dependent on the far-right ultra nationalist Grand Unity Party, she is in no position as foreign minister to climb down in the Aegean.

Despite her concessions on manoeuvres this week, we could, in the words of Mr Pangalos last month, be facing a long hot summer in the Aegean, and Mr Spring may make no progress on changing minds in Athens about Meda.

This news analysis feature was first published in The Irish Times on 6 July 1996

Elgin Marbles may see the blue skies of Athens after 200 years

Letter from Athens
Patrick Comerford

Despite the heat, hundreds and thousands of tourists climb the steps up the Acropolis in Athens each day, to view the Parthenon and the other great classical buildings that are the crowning, glory of the Greek capital.

By day, the Parthenon can looks like an abandoned building site, surrounded by scaffolding and with large cranes inside the shell. But by night, viewed from below, it takes on a new beauty with the Sound and Light show that can be seen right across the city.

Archaeology and the great classical sites are a major reason for many tourists visiting Greece. But archaeology is also an emotive subject for Greeks.

Following concerted protests from Greek and German archaeologists and from the Athens Academy, building work on the Athens Metro came to a halt at the end of last month to allow geological tests to determine whether tunnelling was threatening the ancient Karameikos Cemetery close to the slopes of the Acropolis. And this month in Crete, staff at Knossos warned that immediate action is required to save the Minoan Palace.

But if the staff at Knossos fret about official indifference, the prospects for the Acropolis have improved in recent weeks, with a British television programme calling for the return of the so called Elgin Marbles to the Parthenon, and with President Kostis Stephanopoulos and the Greek Prime Minister, Mr Kostas Simitis, throwing their weight behind a campaign once identified closely with the late Culture Minister, Melina Mercouri.

The Acropolis has been a focus and nucleus during every phase in the development and growth of Athens, and became the heart of the first Greek city state. Under Pericles, the Parthenon took only 10 years to build with, in the words of Plutarch, “every architect striving to surpass the magnificence of the design with the elegance of the exterior.”

The elegant exterior survived for centuries, and the Parthenon has served as Greek and Roman temple, Byzantine church, Frankish cathedral and Turkish mosque.

By 1563 a minaret had been added, but a visiting Venetian diplomat found the building was still covered in sculptures and painted in bright colours. In 1687, the Venetians laying siege to the garrison on the Acropolis ignited a Turkish gunpowder magazine, blowing the roof off the Parthenon and giving the marbles their apricot tinged glow so admired by neo classicists of the 18th century.

At the beginning of the 19th century, a Scottish peer, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, was British ambassador to the Porte. An Ottoman permit allowed him to erect scaffolding on the Acropolis, carry out excavations, and remove stones with inscriptions. But, by design or by cunning, he interpreted the Turkish concession liberally, and between 1801 and 1811 made off with almost all the bas-reliefs from the Parthenon's frieze, most of its pedimental structures, and a caryatid from the Erectheion. These he sold to the British Museum in London in 1816 for £35,000.

The English poet Byron was outraged by the vandalism, describing Elgin as “the last, the worst, dull spoiler” from Caledonia. The Greek poet Yannis Ritsos expressed the feelings of his nation when he wrote: “These stones cannot make do with less sky.” The campaign to return the marbles gained momentum when Melina Mercouri became Culture Minister. “I believe the time has come for these marbles to return to the blue sky of Attica,” she declared in 1982.

Now, a major television programme has revived the campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles. The Without Walls programme was hosted by William Stewart, who argued for their return by 2001 – the 200th anniversary of Elgin’s looting of the Acropolis. But he hedged his demand with three stipulations:

• The marbles should return only when the new Acropolis Museum is ready to receive them;

• All costs for their return should be met by Greece; and

• Greece should bear no claim for the return of any other artefacts held in Britain.

Commenting on the stipulations, President Stephanopoulos said: “These are very reasonable preconditions that every Greek would readily accept. There is no reason why we should not accept this five-year agreement.”

Over 100,000 viewers phoned in after the first screening of the programme: 99,340 or 92.5 per cent supported the return of the marbles, with only 7,518 expressing opposition. Now 33 Labour MPs have given their support to calls for the return of the marbles to Greece.

Stewart pointed out that he is decidedly “not in favour of every work of art or ancient artefact being returned to its country of origin.” It was a point worth making at a time when the Turks are demanding the return of Priam’s Treasure, currently on show in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow. The gold of Troy was excavated by Heinrich Schliemann and was smuggled out of Turkey to Athens in 1873.

Greece has made no official claim to the collection, but would find sympathetic ears in Moscow, despite competition from Turkey and Germany. Dr Yiannis Tzedakis and Prof Giorgios Korres of Athens University were invited to the exhibition’s opening, when Dr Irina Antovana, director of the Pushkin Museum, reaffirmed a promise she made when Melina Mercouri died: “From the moment the legal problems are solved, Greece will be the first country to exhibit the treasures.”

But whatever happens to Priam's Gold, Greek hopes for the return of the Parthenon Marbles have been boosted in the past few weeks. Melina Mercouri’s husband, the French film producer Jules Dassis, believes the repatriation of the marbles “is now much easier than when Melina campaigned.” He is heartened by the prospect of Labour winning the next British election: “If they return to power … then Greece has very good reason to hope.”

Now the Prime Minister, Mr Simitis, is relaunching her campaign. “It is of major concern to Greece to secure the return of the ‘Elgin Marbles’, especially now that 90 per cent of the British public appear to support the Greek case,” he said. It shows that the British people have a sensitivity and principles which their government must respect.”

This news feature was first publish in The Irish Times on 18 June 1996

Greek islanders tilt at Turks as EU promises them a windmill

Letter from Crete
Patrick Comerford

The tourist industry in Greece is suffering badly this year, with bookings from the main sources of tourism, Britain and Germany, down by 20 to 30 per cent so far.

The pinch is being felt throughout Greece, particularly in popular islands like Rhodes and Crete. But one island that sees few tourists, year in year out, is Gavdos, the southernmost island of Greece and of Europe.

Ironically, Gavdos may have been one of the first islands to attract tourists. According to tradition this island, off the south coast of Crete and lodged in the Libyan sea between Europe and North Africa, is Homer’s island of Ogygia, the home of the nymph Kalypso, who seduced Odysseus.

In classical times the island was known to Plutarch as Kavdos and to the Romans as Clauda. St Paul was blown past the island in the storm that carried him off from Crete to eventual shipwreck on Malta.

Under Byzantine rule, it was so heavily populated it was a diocese with its own bishop. The Venetians who occupied Crete for four centuries named the island Gozo di Candia, and feared it as the hideout of pirates. The Turks who captured Crete in 1669 knew Gavdos as Bougadoz under Ottoman rule; the now abandoned Pharos or lighthouse on the north-west tip was built by a French company in 1880.

In 1912 as part of the province of Sfakion, Gavdos was integrated along with the rest of Crete into the modern Greek state. But today it is still cut off from the rest of the world during extended periods in the winter; during the summer the weekly ferries from Paleohora and Hora Sfokion, as regularly as not, fail to make the three hour, 45 km journey due to strong winds. The expensive fares and unpredictable sailings deter any tourist who is ailing at heart or weak in pocket.

The problems facing the tourist in summer are a bitter taste of the perennial problems haunting, the residents in winter. Electricity only arrived with solar cells and generators in the 1980s, there are only 15 telephones and fewer cars.

Visitors are warned not to contaminate the limited fresh water supply with soap. The police station and school are dilapidated and forlorn, the need to preserve law and order and to provide education have long passed.

There are no package holidays to Gavdos. But for the few tourists – mainly Germans – who manage the three-hour trip from Paleohora, there are two tavernas and 19 rooms to rent, spread through the ‘capital’ Kastri, and the hamlets of Karabe, Sarakinikos and Korfos.

But the triangular island has fine cedar, pine, olive, carob and fig trees, crystal clear, sparkling turquoise waters and golden stretches of sand. The local honey is wonderful and the local wine comes with strong recommendations.

The island, home to 8,000 people in the Middle Ages, has fewer than 120 permanent residents today. The majority of houses in Kastri are crumbling away.

Only two families live in Ambelos, once famed for its vineyards. In Vatsiana, the southernmost settlement of Europe, isolation and irregular human contact have made the few inhabitants the most hospitable in Greece. At Cape Tripiti, the southernmost tip of Europe, the abandoned country houses of stone and cedarwood now shelter livestock. Beyond, there is only sea separating Greece from Libya, Europe from Africa.

On Thursday last, Gavdos had more visitors in a day than it might have had in the whole holiday season. The island was invaded by media eager to hear the islanders express their fears, not of mass tourism, but of a military invasion.

Earlier in the week, hours before his resignation, the Turkish prime minister, Mr Mesut Yilmaz, repeated his claim that there were “grey areas” – including Gavdos – in the Aegean that needed to be negotiated with Athens.

Last January, Turkey and Greece came close to war over the Dodecanese islets of Imia. Now for the first time, Ankara has staked a claim to a part of Greece abandoned by the Ottoman Empire in the last century and hundreds of miles from the Turkish coast.

“The Turkish claims are absolutely ridiculous," said Mr Michalis Pandelakis, the deputy chairman of Gavdos Community Council. "Someone has to put things in their right place.”

“If need be, we will give our answer with shotguns and pistols,” one angry resident told the daily Ethnos. “No Turk has ever set foot here. We want the international community to condemn the troublemakers.”

But the new focus on Gavdos has brought mixed blessings. The island looks like getting a new wind driven generator system courtesy of the European Union.

The island has long been demanding infrastructural investment and a regular ferry service with the south of Crete. Now the positive response of the Energy Commissioner, Mr Christos Papoutsis, a member Mr Simitis’s party, Pasok, and the four-day visit to Crete by the Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, look like meeting some of the demands of Gavdos community council.

This news feature was first published in The Irish Times on 11 June 1996

Greek leader faces tough battle to maintain control of his party

Patrick Comerford

Only four months after succeeding Mr Andreas Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, is facing a tough battle for control of his party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok).

Mr Papandreou (77) has refused to step down as president of the party he welded together 22 years ago, and it appears increasingly likely that the main battle will come later this month in the party congress with elections to a newly created post of executive vice president.

The group of so called “lieutenants”, including two government ministers, Mr Haris Kastanidis and Mr Dimitris Reppas, have expressed their support for Mr Simitis. But they have been critical of those supporting the so called dual leadership, with Mr Papandreou as party president and Mr Simitis as Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister was initially uneasy about the proposals for electing a vice president, insisting Pasok needed “clear solutions” to its internal problems. “Clear solutions. Clear solutions are always the best,” he said after meeting Pasok’s secretary, Mr Kostas Skandalidis, who had talks with Mr Papandreou before a meeting of the party’s executive bureau.

Mr Simitis had a taste of victory this month when the parliamentary group elected three of his supporters to the party presidium. But the way is not clear yet, and observers believe the rift has grown wider between the Prime Minister and party members still loyal to Mr Papandreou and the unreformed wing of the party represented by the Interior Minister, Mr Akis Tsohatzsopoulos.

Mr Tshatzsopoulos, who talks in terms of a collective party leadership, is likely to be Mr Simitis’s main rival at the party congress. He keeps a tight grip on the party machine and organisation, and his supporters also managed to take three of the presidium seats, with only one going to a supporter of the Defence Minister, Mr Gerasimos Arsenis, who gave Mr Simitis a tough run in the leadership race in January.

If Mr Simitis fails to win the support of the party congress, he is expected to resign and Pasok could split, with Mr Simitis taking key party figures with him, including the Foreign Minister, Mr Theodoros Pangalos, and the Development Minister, Dr Vasso Papandreou. Together, the three were the main reformers who led the move to oust Mr Papandreou from the party leadership four months ago.

Either way, the outcome is likely to bring new elections in the autumn, with a congress victory encouraging Mr Simitis to seek his own mandate from the voters.

In his official residence, the Maximos Palace near Sindagma Square in central Athens, Mr Simitis appeared optimistic about next month’s congress, saying the type of change he proposes in Pasok “is not easy, but is necessary … Democratic practices must be learned.”

He said Greece's two main parties, Pasok and New Democracy, had been dominated for almost 30 years by chiefs, a reference to both Mr Papandreou and the former president, Mr Konstantinos Karamanlis. “We need no more chiefs of this type in Greece,” he added.

Mr Simitis gave the impression of wanting to put party divisions behind him in order to concentrate on the major foreign policy questions facing Greece, including relations with Turkey, tensions over the Aegean islands and the presence of Turkish occupying troops in northern Cyprus, playing a positive role in the Balkans, and working towards closer co-operation with the countries of the Middle East.

He expressed disappointment that no fellow member state of the European Union had expressed support for Greece when Turkey violated its borders last January and tried to occupy the small Dodecanese islets of Imia, off the coast of Kalilimnos. No European country had ever been asked to redraw its borders, he said, and “no other European country has seen soldiers of another country on its territory”.

Good Greek Turkish relations make sense, the Prime Minister insists, and he wants closer co-operation with his neighbour in many fields, including economic development and tourism. “Nationalism is out of time and place now,” he declares.

But Mr Simitis insists no EU member state has ever been asked to redraw its borders, and concedes he cannot understand Turkey’s demands in the Aegean: “I don’t know what Turkey wants exactly.”

However, despite an apparent lack of confidence in the six-month Italian presidency, Mr Simitis expressed his hopes for the forthcoming Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC). Greece had three hopes for the negotiations: a more federative model for the EU, more powers for the Commission and more democracy and an enhancement of common policy making.

Greece would find it difficult to meet the Maastricht requirements for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), he said, but he hoped the country would still try to meet those requirements.

Asked whether he expected Cyprus to become a full member of the EU by 2000, he said: “We are working for it and I hope we will achieve it.”

Looking outside the EU, Mr Simitis pointed out that Athens had good relations with its neighbours in the Balkans, while its differences with Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Fyrom) were close to being overcome.

However, Turkey’s claims in the Aegean were a problem relating directly to European foreign and security issues, and “they (EU member states) should help solve the problem”. Declaring Greece’s good intentions, he added forcefully: “This is not the age of nationalism any more. This is not the age of wars.”

This news analysis feature was first published in The Irish Times on 1 June 1996

Athens defends its territorial integrity

Patrick Comerford talks to the Greek ambassador about outstanding differences between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and the Aegean Sea

By Patrick Comerford

The recent clash between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean caused a serious political crisis in Athens, with the new government of Mr Costas Simitis coming in for severe criticism from the opposition parties.

The government survived a confidence vote, but the chief of staff of the armed forces, Admiral Christos Lyberis, was replaced.

In the European Parliament, MEPs backed Greece’s claims to the uninhabited islet of Imia. The EU Foreign Ministers met in Brussels last Monday and called on Turkey to resolve its difficulties with Greece through the International Court of Justice.

The formulation was not sufficient to get the Greek government to lift its veto on a £300 million aid package for Turkey linked to the customs union agreement sealed last June.

There are major outstanding conflicts between the two Aegean neighbours, including the continuing Turkish military presence in northern Cyprus, the Cypriot application for EU membership, EU relations with Turkey, and oil drilling rights in the Aegean waters.

The Madrid summit last year agreed that full discussions on Cypriot membership would begin six months after the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC), and Ireland’s six-month presidency beginning in July is being watched anxiously in Athens as a crucial period ahead of those negotiations.

According to the Greek Ambassador in Dublin, Mr Hannibal Velliadis, the recent “visit by the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, is a sign that Ireland understands the need for a just solution in Cyprus”.

In an interview with The Irish Times, he said: “During the Irish presidency we look for the support for the application from Cyprus for full membership of the European Union” when negotiations begin. He referred to the long-standing presence of Irish peace-keeping units in Cyprus, and said: “We are looking forward to Irish assistance in promoting, the full membership of Cyprus.”

He pointed out that while the problem of Cyprus “does not constitute a Greek-Turkish problem, nevertheless it poisons our bilateral relations … The accession of Cyprus to the European Union will also improve the proposals of a peaceful and just solution,” he says.

The other major source of tension between Athens and Ankara is their rival claims in the Aegean Sea. Although Imia is uninhabited, it is close to the island of Kos and an integral part of the Dodecanese islands which were reintegrated in Greece after the second World War. Mr Velliadis, who once served as a diplomat in the port of Smyrna (Izmir), sees the claims and conflicts over Imia as part of a wider Turkish strategy.

He says it is a “permanent feature of Turkish policy to raise unilaterally claims and afterwards to ask the settlement of the ensuing problems in the framework of the relations of the two countries. Those claims affect the sovereign rights of Greece and her territorial integrity which are non-negotiable.”

On the other hand, he believes Greece’s interests in the region have a more peaceful intent, saying Greece has “a wise, moderate and realistic policy trying always to examine every possibility for the improvement of relations with her neighbour without concessions in her sovereign rights.”

He points out that diplomatic contacts have been initiated in the past for “tourism, economic matters, illegal immigration”, but says these came to an end after Turkey refused to continue the initiatives. “Actually, the only outstanding issue between the two countries is the issue of the continental shelf which Greece has proposed to raise to the International Court in The Hague.”

The recent debate about extending Greek territorial waters to 12 miles has brought threats from Ankara of a military response. But the ambassador says the extension is not a unilateral Greek claim but a right accorded by the new Law of the Sea Convention.

He claims the Turkish assembly recently approved a resolution empowering the government in Ankara “to take the necessary measures, including military steps” in case Greece implements its rights to a 12-mile limit.

This week, Mr Simitis restated Greece’s position that Athens has the right to extend its territorial waters in the Aegean to 12 miles from the present six, and “would do so when it sees fit”. Turkey has said such a move would be a cause for war.

Although Turkey is the only country that “has refused to ratify the International Convention on the Law of the Sea”, Mr Velliadis argues that according to the ethic of international law “even countries which do not ratify an international convention are obliged to comply with its contents”.

Asked whether Greece would welcome Turkey as a full member of the EU, Mr Velliadis says Greece favours the European orientation of Turkey, “but her European itinerary is linked with certain behaviour”. In particular, he argues Turkey must “abandon aggressive schemes, facilitate a solution of the Cyprus problem, improve relations with her neighbouring countries and particularly with Greece, respect human rights, and cease state terrorism, particularly against the Kurds”.

He dismisses Turkish accusations that Greece provides political and military support for Kurdish rebels. “The Turkish side, despite numerous promises, was unable to sustain her accusations against Greece for assisting terrorist organisations,” he says.

Mr Velliadis, who came to Ireland from Jordan in 1991, was born in Piraeus, the port city of Athens. He is encouraged by the close relations between Greece and Ireland and the possibilities of increasing bilateral trade, saying “there is a close co-operation between the two small peripheral countries” in the EU.

"Cultural links are very important and in view of the extended classical studies in this country,” he says. “An increase of exchange of professors, scholarships, teaching of modern Greek, et al, constitute a solid basis for further improvement.”

This interview and news feature was first published in The Irish Times on 1 March 1996

No solution to Cyprus without full commitment of Turkey

World View
Patrick Comerford

The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, is visiting Cyprus next week for talks on the island's divisions – Nicosia is Europe’s last remaining divided capital – and to discuss Cypriot aspirations for full membership of the EU.

For the past week, the islanders of Cyprus have been suffering a heavy downpour, with floods in Limassol bringing an end to one of the worst droughts this century. But there are darker clouds in the region threatening to overshadow next week's visit to Cyprus by three EU foreign ministers.

Cyprus has remained divided and part occupied since the Turkish invasion in 1974, and the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, proclaimed in 1983, is recognised only by Ankara. But there can be no solution to the problems of Cyprus without the full support and commitment of a Turkish government.

Mr Spring’s visit comes ahead of a visit later this month by Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat, who has decided to concentrate all his efforts on Cyprus, having brokered the Dayton peace accords for Bosnia.

The EU wants progress on Cyprus so that talks on full EU membership can begin. However, a Turkish foreign ministry spokesman said this week there was no need for an EU initiative on Cyprus because the UN is already working on a diplomatic solution.

But while Mr Spring is in Cyprus, all political efforts in Turkey will be concentrated on forming a new government. And a key player in those negotiations is the leader of the Islamist Welfare Party (RP). Mr Necmettin Erbakan, who was deputy head of government under Mr Bulent Ecevit when Turkey invaded Cyprus In last month’s election, the Welfare Party took the largest share of votes and won 158 seats in parliament. The True Path Party of the caretaker prime minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, has 135 seats and the rival conservative Motherland Party of Mr Mesut Yilmaz 132 seats. Two left-wing parties share the rest of the 550 seats.

The constitution requires parliament to reconvene on Monday, when President Demirel is expected to hand out the job of forming a government, and political tradition dictates that the Welfare Party gets the first chance.
Ms Ciller has conceded that Mr Erbakan should be given the first chance. But the Islamists do not have enough seats or allies to form a government and are struggling to find a coalition partner.

In an interview with the Hurriyet daily on Thursday, Ms Ciller predicted the Welfare Party would fail to form a coalition and that Mr Demirel would then turn to the secular alliance planned by Ms Ciller and Mr Yilmaz, who have been holding talks for almost two weeks aimed at denying power to the Welfare Party.

If Turkey has its political problems, it has its economic problems, too consumer prices rose by 78.9 per cent and wholesale prices by 64.9 per cent in 1995, according to the State Statistical Institute this week.

The business community hopes Ms Ciller and Mr Yilmaz can put their old rivalries behind them and form a coalition backed by the left, both to block the Islamists and to treat Turkey's economic ills.

However, many Turks, having reaped no benefit from the recent rapid development, are looking to alternatives for a more just society and have rejected the traditional politicians and their parties.

Although the most extremist members of the Welfare Party, such as the mayor of the Black Sea town of Rize, speak of a “bloody revolution”, it would be too simplistic and would only serve common western prejudices to dismiss the party as a fundamentalist movement threatening the secular foundations of the modern Turkish state.

The Welfare Party has little in common with parties such as the Muslim Group or Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Islamists trying to destabilise Saudi Arabia and many of the Gulf monarchies, or the Islamists in Lebanon and Iran.

Support for the party has increased with visible discrimination against religious Muslims who are not necessarily extremists well educated and independent women have been sidelined by the secular system for wearing the headscarf, lawyers have been barred from pleading in court wearing it, and students have been thrown out of universities for their head scarves on.

Much of the support for the Welfare Party is found in the cities and large urban areas rather than in rural backwaters. Since their election almost two years ago, the party's mayors in Ankara and Istanbul have earned a reputation for honesty and genuine public service.

Although small traders and industrialists are typical of the right wing of the Welfare Party. it has its own left wing, which believes its real constituency is in the city slums. In many of its policies, the Welfare Party has more in common with the parties of the left, attracting support by doing social work in poorer quarters and listening to those often ignored by the mainstream politicians.

Mr Erbakan was arrested after the 1980 coup and charged with trying to impose a religious regime in Turkey. Today, he says his party in government would be democratic and non-violent, and insists religion should neither control the state nor be controlled by it.

However, his proclaimed aims include "liberating Jerusalem, Bosnia and Chechnya", abolishing interest rates and forging an Islamic common market.

Turkey has genuine economic, political and social lies with the newly independent Turkic speaking republics of Central Asia, where it faces competing and challenging interests from Iran.

Following the recent agreement between Turkey and the EU on a customs union, any moves by a partner in a new coalition to distance Turkey from the EU would be of a matter of a grave concern.

But equally worrying is the threat to democracy implicit in last week’s veiled warning from the chief of staff, Gen Ismail Hakki Karaddy, to any party leaders thinking of including the Islamists in a coalition.

The army has intervened on previous occasions when it was dissatisfied with the course of Turkish democracy, and Ms Ciller has already given the security forces a free rein in confronting Kurdish separatists. In 1994, she bowed to military pressure and lifted the parliamentary immunity of Kurdish deputies who were subsequently jailed.

Last month, Kurdish parties won the largest number of votes in four south eastern provinces, but they have been excluded from the new parliament because a 10 per cent threshold rule ensures a bias against regional parties.

With Kurds, and possibly Islamists, excluded from any new coalition, the future looks shaky for Turkish politics. And without political stability in Turkey, Mr Spring and Mr Holbrooke face an uphill battle in their efforts to find a settlement in Cyprus.

This news analysis feature was first published in The Irish Times on Saturday 6 January 1996