Everyone concerned acknowledges the major turnaround in Greek-Turkish relations following the visit of the Greek foreign minister, Mr George Papandreou, to Ankara last week to meet his counterpart, Mr Ismail Cem. It is hard to believe the two states nearly went to war four years ago over a tiny Aegean island and threatened to do so again a year ago over the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. They have now agreed to discuss these issues further and to co-operate as best they can on Cyprus in coming months, as a summit meeting of the two prime ministers is planned.
As always in such reconciliations, a complex set of pressures and events is involved. The spectacular miscalculations of certain Greek politicians in giving refuge to Ocalan deeply embarrassed the prime minister, Mr Costas Simitis, who had come to office determined to improve relations with Turkey. That gave him an incentive to respond co-operatively to his neighbour when opportunities arose, as they did dramatically over Kosovo and then the Turkish earthquakes last year. Both states dealt constructively with the flow of Albanian refugees, despite having differing sympathies in the conflict; and official and popular co-operation after the earthquakes created a psychological momentum which leaders in both states took up skilfully.
Mr Simitis is determined to bring Greece into the euro as a means of modernising his country's economy and socio-political structures. That would be best served, he has long recognised, by pursuing a strategy of reconciliation with Turkey, allowing high defence expenditures to be scaled down and an easing of Greece's nationalist political culture. He has seen the growth of a similar determination among Turkey's political elites to join the European Union. Last year's decisions to restructure the list of EU accession states gave him the opportunity at the EU's Helsinki summit to lift Greek objections to making Turkey a full candidate member, subject as all other such states are to the political, economic and democratic criteria for membership. They are now to work together on Turkey's accession preparations.
This meeting has been the most dramatic manifestation of the Turkish government's positive response to that decision. The ministers signed agreements on tourism; combatting crime, terrorism and illegal immigration; money laundering; environmental protection; and investment. But they will be judged in the long term by their ability to tackle and resolve the two major disputes between them, Aegean territorial rights and the future of Cyprus. There can be no doubt that the new co-operative spirit will greatly ease negotiations. So will the combined pressure and goodwill from the EU, NATO and the United States, all of which have substantial interests in seeing a more stable south-eastern Europe arise from this entente.
Such favourable conditions are, however, necessary but not sufficient conditions for reaching a long-lasting settlement of these deep-seated disputes. They will be resolved only by the parties directly concerned in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. It would be foolish to underestimate the difficulties they face or the possibility that unforeseen events could upset the latest improvement of relations. Both the Greek and Turkish governments face elections this year, which could give them a mandate to pursue agreements. There is now real reason for hope that they can do so.