Is This A Return Of The Aegean Issue?

In spite of the rapprochement between Turkey and Greece of the last few years, the basic disputes on the Aegean issue have ground things to a standstill, and negotiations on these problems have failed to yield fruit. In other words, Turkish-Greek relations have made enormous progress and our two countries have taken important steps in ‘confidence-building measures,’ but there’s not been even a single positive development on the Aegean issue. The disputes over territorial waters and airspace last week brought the current strife to the surface. Actually this isn’t the first time we’ve faced charges of ‘violations’ and ‘harassments’ from Greece. This time the reason behind Athens raising a ruckus – according to its claims – was that Turkey’s ‘violations’ had recently increased greatly and that a Turkish F-16 had harassed a Greek passenger plane.

So Greece alleged that Ankara’s stance came from its military and it started to use this argument as a trump card against our EU bid. Meanwhile, Ankara thinks that Greece began this campaign in order to strengthen its position on the Aegean issue, make the EU accept it and so back Turkey into a corner. Actually as long as Turkey and Greece fail to solve the basic issues on the Aegean and seek to strengthen their own position, these disputes and tensions will come up again and again. Therefore the two countries should benefit from mutual rapprochement in order to solve these problems. Avoiding deterioration in Turkish-Greek relations and starting a constructive dialogue towards this end both depend on the good will and determination of both countries. The Turkish and Greek prime ministers’ meeting to be held this week before the Thessalonica summit could be a good opportunity for such a process to begin.