Eurasia Press & News
Turkey tries to dial down confrontations in the eastern Mediterranean before the Greek minister’s visit as part of its push to improve relations with the West.
Greek Foreign Minister Yorgo Gerapetritis will travel to Turkey on Tuesday as the historic rivals continue efforts to reset their decadeslong dispute over territorial rights in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas and the divided island of Cyprus.
Gerapetritis will meet with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, according to simultaneous statements by the Turkish and Greek Foreign Ministries last week.
The bilateral meeting will mark the first between the new Greek and Turkish chief diplomats since the general elections in both countries. Ankara has been seeking better ties with the West following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s reelection in May. Greece’s swift response to the massive earthquakes that shook Turkey in February created a positive atmosphere that both countries have since sought to build on.
The thaw was in evidence as Erdogan met with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on the sidelines of NATO’s June summit in Vilnius.
The NATO allies remain at odds over sovereignty rights over the status of the Aegean islands and energy claims in the eastern Mediterranean, with the two countries on the brink of conflict in 2020. Gerapetrisis’ visit is meant to lay the ground for a second meeting between the pair in New York later this month where they will be attending the UN General Assembly.
Erdogan is slated to address the UNGA meeting Sept. 19.
Another long running thorn is the status of Cyprus that has remained ethnically divided since Turkey intervened militarily in the majority Turkish northern third after its Greek leaders sought to unite the island with Greece. Turkey and Greece act as guarantors along with Britain on the island.
Fears of an escalation arose last month over a controversial road project by the Turkish Cypriots along Cyprus’ UN-controlled buffer zone.
De-escalation in Cyprus
Scuffles erupted between Turkish Cypriot forces and UN peacekeepers who intervened in the construction work Aug. 18, marking a rare escalation in Europe’s oldest frozen conflict and drawing harsh condemnations from the UN as well as Greek Cypriots, Athens, the European Union and London.
The Turkish Cypriots, and Ankara in turn, remained defiant, arguing that the road was meant to link Pyla village — the sole Cyprus settlement where Greek and Turkish Cypriots live together — to the Turkish side for humanitarian purposes.
Nevertheless, local Turkish Cypriot Mayor Bulent Bebek, whose municipality is in charge of services for Turkish Cypriots in Pyla, told Al-Monitor that the construction was paused as the UN talks with involved parties. The decision to halt construction and Athens’ muted response to the incident were widely interpreted as signs that both sides were averse to allowing the attempted reset to be overshadowed by it.
Meanwhile, along with the UN Peacekeeping Force, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also sped up his efforts to revive stalled settlement talks on the island. Miroslav Jenca, UN assistant secretary-general for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, met with Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders as well as the Turkish president’s top foreign policy adviser, Akif Kilic, last week.
Bite your tongue
A further telling sign of Ankara’s desire to improve ties was its silence over an American warship docked in Greek Cyprus last week. The absence of protests marked a departure from established practice, but fell in line with Ankara’s recent reconciliatory foreign policy.
Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that posture may also explain Turkey’s low-key response to the Pyla crisis.
“I think the view is that if there is an improvement in the Turkish-Greek ties, … this will help with Turkey’s relationship with the US. Especially with Turkey’s standing on the Hill, where a number of senators and others have been opposing the F-16 sale,” Cagaptay told Al-Monitor.
Turkish President Erdogan’s acquiescing to Sweden’s pending NATO membership in July initially softened up Menendez’s opposition. However, the senator later signaled that his position didn’t change following the Turkish president’s delay of ratification until October when the Turkish parliament will reconvene.
The Biden administration’s preferred reset “would start with Turkey ratifying Sweden’s NATO accession, followed by the White House agreeing to sell F-16s to Turkey,” Cagaptay noted. “And then somewhere in between, of course, there would be consensus forming that Turkish-Greek ties are in excellent shape, so that members like Sen. Menendez would lift their objection to the F-16 sale.”
Ankara is seeking to acquire 40 new F-16 fighter jets and 79 modernization kits to maintain its existing fleet. It was excluded from the US F-35 fighter jet program in response to its purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense system.
European relations also need improvement
Turkey is also seeking to improve its relations with the EU in order to rebuild confidence among Western investors and negotiate a modernized Customs Union treaty with the European bloc. That could “improve the investment environment in Turkey and also introduce more growth,” Cagaptay added.
