Editor's note:
The following article by Stephen Kinzer who reports from Athens demonstrates clearly what Greek propaganda has achieved in the minds of the Western public. The description of Turkish rescuers pulling a child from under the rubble is so emotional and dramatic - poetic to the extent of being reminiscent of a Shakespearian drama. This kind of exaggeration is well beyond the comprehension of Turkish people because we have never been subjected to anti Greek propaganda during our school years to the extent all Greeks have.
Military action against Aegean islands is and should always be a possibility as long as Greece keeps militarising them and attempting to restrict Turkish movement in the Aegean. Our wish is to have unrestricted access to the Aegean Sea just as two friendly nations would. Half of the Aegean islands are closer to Turkiye than they are to Greece and unlimited movement in the Aegean will undoubtedly benefit both countries. But when Greece tries to turn the Aegean into a Greek lake, the relations between the two countries rapidly deteriorate.
Numerous attempts in the article to discredit the military authorities in Turkiye are another typical reflection of Western prejudice. The army and its generals are the most important guarantors of democracy in Turkiye but this concept is eerily alien to Western journalists who involuntarily associate military authorities with oppression. Western experience is based on successive Latin American, African and Asian episodes which is not valid in Turkiye. Had it not been for the benevolent authority, Turkiye would have sunk into the darkness of social and economic turmoil similar to Algeria, Iran and Afghanistan long ago.
Stephen Kinzer, New York Times
Monday, September 23, 1999
Athens, Greece
The day after Athens was struck by its most serious earthquake in decades, millions of television viewers watched in awe as Turkish rescue workers pulled a Greek child from under a pile of rubble. Announcers struggled to control their emotion.
"It's the Turks!" one of them shouted as his voice began to crack. "They've got the little boy. They saved him. And now the Turkish guy is drinking from a bottle of water. It's the same bottle the Greek rescuers just drank from. This is love. It's so beautiful."
Although Greece and Turkey are both members of NATO, there are perhaps no two allied neighbouring nations whose dealings have been marked with so much conflict and mistrust. But in the last four weeks, their relations have improved with a spectacular suddenness that no one had expected. Although serious political differences between the two countries still remain, both sides are now displaying a willingness to resolve them that they have not shown for generations.
Greek-Turkish relations had been improving slowly for several months, but it took earthquakes in both countries to push the two countries toward a more genuine friendship. Each sent rescue teams to help the other, and their gestures were greeted by waves of ecstatic publicity and popular emotion.
"I think we're in the middle of a new phenomenon that you could call seismic diplomacy or earthquake diplomacy," said Nicholas Burns, the U. S. ambassador to Greece. "Images that people saw on TV had tremendous political symbolism, and there's an opportunity for both sides to build on that."
Hardly a day now passes without a new sign of warmth between Greece and Turkey. At the end of August, the commander of the Greek Navy travelled to Turkey, toured towns devastated by the Aug. 17 earthquake, and made a moving call for peace at a ceremony marking the retirement of his Turkish counterpart. While he was there, a Greek naval vessel called at a Turkish port for the first time in more than a quarter-century.
Soon afterward, Greek and Turkish business leaders agreed to revive a cooperation council whose activities were suspended earlier this year in one of the periodic spats that have poisoned relations between the two countries. Then, leading Greek and Turkish news commentators agreed to begin publishing their columns in each other's newspapers.
At a meeting of European foreign ministers in Finland this month, Greece took the significant step of announcing that it would no longer block Turkey's application for membership in the European Union.
On Thursday, teams of Greek and Turkish diplomats met in Athens to plan cultural exchanges and discuss cooperation in tourism, environmental protection, trade and other areas. While they were meeting, Turks observed the anniversary of their 1922 military triumph over Greece with a restraint they had never shown before.
Normally the anniversary of the Turkish triumph at Smyrna, now known as Izmir, is marked by Turkish troops dressed in period costume who symbolically bayonet actors playing Greek soldiers, throw others into the sea and lustily tear down and trample a Greek flag. This year, there was only a muted ceremony limited to a wreath-laying and playing of the national anthem.
"I have been writing a 'Greek-Turkish' piece almost every Sept. 9 for 25 years now," columnist Rauf Tamer wrote in the Istanbul newspaper Sabah. "I pulled them all out of the archives. I tore them all up and threw them away. I am now starting a new Sept. 9 series. This is the real starting point, a fresh beginning, the first step toward the 21st century."
On Friday, President Costis Stephanopoulos of Greece was host of a reception in honour of Turkish earthquake relief workers, telling them that Greeks "will always remember you with profound feelings of friendship."
The Greek Embassy in Ankara reported that a Turk had telephoned and offered to donate one of his kidneys to a Greek earthquake victim. A Greek had made a similar gesture after the Turkish quake.
Tension between Greece and Turkey has not yet evaporated. Each has recently embarked on a new, hugely expensive military buying spree that unsettles the other.
Turkey has made vague threats against Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Cyprus, divided since Turks invaded the north in 1974, remains partitioned into ethnic Greek and Turkish sections, and the positions of Cypriot leaders, who are beholden to Athens or Ankara, remain rigid.
Asked last week about these problems, Foreign Minister George Papandreou of Greece replied: "I don't think that all of a sudden everything has been solved. But a climate exists that could allow for a breakthrough on these issues."
Papandreou's appointment as foreign minister this year was a key factor leading to the change in climate between Greece and Turkey. His predecessor, Theodore Pangalos, was a flamboyant figure who denounced Turks as "thieves and rapists." But he fell from power in the scandal that followed the capture in February of the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who had been hiding in Kenya under the protection of Greek diplomats.
That episode stirred many Turks to emotional denunciations of Greece, and relations seemed to have reached a new low. In retrospect, it may be seen as a positive turning point because it led to the emergence of Papandreou, a conciliator who evidently believes that he has a chance to change the course of his country's history by ending its enmity with Turkey.
Papandreou shares much with his Turkish counterpart, Ismail Cem. Both men are foreign-educated intellectuals who shun demagogic rhetoric. They speak by telephone every few days. In the past, Greek and Turkish foreign ministers often went months without speaking.
Despite their good personal relationship, both Papandreou and Cem must work within political constraints. Papandreou's party faces a national election next year, and if he is seen as surrendering too much to Turkey, political enemies may seek to portray him as weak and naive.
Cem must deal with militant nationalists in the coalition government he represents. He also faces the harsh reality that in Turkey, key changes in foreign policy can be made only with the permission of military commanders. Whether the commanders are ready to embrace Greece after generations of hostility remains uncertain.
"The most important question is whether there can be change in Turkey, and the key to that is the military and its attitude toward civil society," said Thanos Veremis, a professor of political history at Athens University. "The Turkish military is highly conservative, and it wants to preserve its political power. I frankly can't see how that logjam will break."
Veremis said Greeks would respond most positively to a statement from Turkey that it harbours no designs on Greek islands, especially if the statement came from a senior military commander like Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu, chief of the general staff.
"People in Greece don't pay attention to what Turkish politicians say, because we see that they don't count," he said. "But if Kivrikoglu comes out and assures Greece that there's never going to be war over the islands, that would go a long way because we know he's the ultimate arbiter."
Regional developments in the last few months have helped bring Greece and Turkey closer together. The two foreign ministers consulted regularly during the Kosovo crisis. Their relationship may also have been strengthened by the recent easing of tension between Israel, a traditional friend of Turkey, and the Palestinians, whom Greece has long supported.
Another factor that has helped improve the political climate is the changing attitude of the Turkish and Greek press, both of which have for years sought to win readers and viewers by fanning the flames of chauvinistic nationalism. Since the quake in Turkey last month, they have made an abrupt about-face, and are now vocal cheerleaders for the cause of peace.
Foreign governments are encouraging the countries' new-found friendship, among them the Clinton administration. President Clinton is to receive Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit of Turkey at the White House this month, and he is expected to visit both Turkey and Greece in November.
Soon after Clinton's trip, the European Union will hold a crucial summit meeting in Helsinki. Turkey is hoping that Greece will help persuade the 15-nation union, many of whose members have been critical of Turkey's human rights record, to add Turkey to its list of prospective members. If that does not happen, momentum toward Greek-Turkish friendship may be slowed.