How encouraging is the latest Turkish–Greek reconciliation process?

Abstract

The main contention of this article is that the recent thaw in bilateral Greek‐Turkish relations is promising yet insufficient for future stability and cooperation in and around the Aegean Sea. To the surprise of commited observers of Turkish‐Greek relations, the two countries set in motion a cooperative interaction process in mid‐1999 and since then have succeeded in sorting out some problematical isssues. Unsurprisngly however, the main platform for this painful exercise has been Turkey's EU accession process as well as Greece's continuing efforts to catch up with the latest stage of the EU integration process. Taking stock of these processes of Europeanisation in the two countries, some observers have rushed to conclude that these are irreversible and that as long as both countries maintain their aspirations to further ‘Europeanise’, neither the Cyprus dispute nor the Aegean problems would remain unresolved. However, as this article will argue below, there is little justification for this vague optimism about the future, which reflects the prevalence of instrumental‐strategic thinking on both shores of the Aegean Sea. Neither Greece nor Turkey has approached the settlement of the disputes from an ideational perspective, whereby their resolution would be seen as a legitimate and appropriate goal in the age of globalisation. On the contrary, they appeared to regard the resolution of these disputes as necessary within the context of their relations with the European Union. Turkey has implicitly threatened to embroil Greece in conflicts in and around the Aegean sea, in order to discourage any Greek attempts to block Turkey's route to Brussels by constantly Europeanising Turkish‐Greek disputes. Greece on the other hand has adopted a facilitative conditionality policy towards Turkey by appearing to support Turkey's EU membership on the condition (and in the hope) that Turkey would show greater flexibility on resolving the Aegean and Cyprus disputes in ways more favourable to Greece.