Greece–Turkey relations
Greece and Turkey established diplomatic relations in the 1830s following Greece's formation after its declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire. Modern relations began when Turkey was proclaimed a republic in 1923 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Rivalry has characterised their relations for most of their history with periods of positive relations but no underlying resolution of the main issues.
Control of the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean seas remains as the main issue. Following the aftermath of World War II, the UNCLOS treaty, the decolonisation of Cyprus, and the addition of Dodecanese to Greece's territory have strained the relationship. Several issues frequently affect their current relations, including territorial disputes over the sea and air, minority rights, and Turkey's relationship with the European Union and its member states—especially Cyprus. Control of energy pipelines is also an increasing focus in their relations.
Contextual overview on relations
The histories of the Byzantine Empire and Ottoman Empire factor into modern relations between Turkey and Greece. Anthony Kaldellis views the Byzantine Empire as a pre-modern nation state. There is a debate that Turkey is not a successor state but the legal continuation of the Ottoman Empire as a republic.Greece and Turkey have a rivalry with a history of events that have been used to justify their nationalism. These events include the Ottoman Genocide, the Istanbul pogrom and the illegal occupation of Cyprus condemned under UN Resolution 550. Greek-Turkish feuding was not a significant factor in international relations from 1930 to 1955, and during the Cold War, domestic and bipolar politics limited competitive behaviour against each other. By the mid-1990s and later decades, these restraints on their rivalry were removed, and both nations had become each other's biggest security risk.
Diplomatic missions
The first official diplomatic contact between Greece and the Ottoman Empire occurred in 1830. Consular relations between the two countries were established in 1834. In 1853, a Greek embassy was opened in Istanbul; this was discontinued during periods of crisis and eventually transferred to the new capital Ankara in 1923 when the Republic of Turkey was formed.Turkey's missions in Greece include its embassy in Athens and consulates general in Thessaloniki, Komotini and Rhodes. Greece's missions in Turkey include its embassy in Ankara, and consulates general in Istanbul, İzmir and Edirne.
History
Background
The Greek presence in Asia Minor dates to the Late Bronze Age or earlier. The Göktürks of the First Turkic Khaganate was the first Turkic state to politically use the name Türk. The first contact with the Byzantine Empire is believed to have occurred in AD 563. In the 10th century, the Seljuk Turks rose to power.The first conflict between the Byzantine Empire and Seljuk Turks occurred at the Battle of Kapetron in 1048. More notable is the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 and the Turkish settlement of Anatolia that followed. Later, Turkish Anatolian beyliks were established in former Byzantine lands and in the territory of the fragmenting Seljuk Sultanate. One of those beyliks was the Ottoman dynasty, which became the Ottoman Empire.
In 1453, the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire.
Much of modern Greece and Turkey came under Ottoman rule in the 15th century. During the following centuries, there were sporadic but unsuccessful Greek uprisings against Ottoman rule. Greek nationalism started to appear in the 18th century. In March 1821, the Greek War of Independence began.
Greece and the Ottoman Empire relations: 1822–1923
Following the Greek War of Independence, Greece was formed as an independent state in 1830. Relations between Greece and the Ottoman Empire were shaped by the Eastern Question and the Megali Idea. Conflicts between the two countries include the Epirus Revolt of 1854 during the Crimean War, the 1878 Greek Macedonian rebellion and the Epirus Revolt of 1878 during the Russo-Turkish War. Wars between the Ottomans and the Greeks include the Greco-Turkish War and the two Balkan Wars. By the end of the Second Balkan War due to the Treaty of Bucharest Greece grew by two-thirds; it went from and its population from 2,660,000 to 4,363,000. With the Allies' victory in World War I, Greece was awarded sovereignty over Western Thrace in the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine; and Eastern Thrace and the Smyrna area in the Treaty of Sèvres. Greek gains were largely undone by the subsequent Greco-Turkish War.Greece occupied Smyrna on 15 May 1919, while Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who was to become the leader of the Turkish opposition to the Treaty of Sèvres, landed in Samsun on 19 May 1919, an action that is regarded as the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence. Mustafa Kemal united the protesting voices in Anatolia and began a nationalist movement to repel the Allied armies that had occupied the Ottoman Empire and establish new borders for a sovereign Turkish nation. The Turkish nation would be Western in civilisation and would elevate Turkish culture that had faded under Arab culture; this included disassociating Islam from Arab culture and restricted it to the private sphere.
The Turkish Parliament in Ankara formally abolished the Sultanate and the Treaty of Lausanne ended all conflict and replaced previous treaties to constitute modern Turkey. The treaty provided for a population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
The treaty also contained a declaration of amnesty for the perpetrators of crimes that were committed between 1914 and 1922, a period which was marked by many atrocities. The Greek genocide was the systematic killing of the Christian–Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia which started before World War I, and continued during the war and its aftermath.
Initial relations between Greece and Turkey: 1923–1945
Following the population exchange, Greece wanted to end hostilities but negotiations stalled because of the issue of valuations of the properties of the exchanged populations. Driven by Eleftherios Venizelos in co-operation with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as well as İsmet İnönü's government, a series of treaties between Greece and Turkey were signed in 1930, in effect restoring Greek-Turkish relations and establishing a de facto alliance between the two countries. As part of these treaties, Greece and Turkey agreed the Treaty of Lausanne would be the final settlement of their respective borders, pledged they would not join opposing military or economic alliances, and to immediately stop their naval arms race.The Balkan Pact of 1934 was signed, in which Greece and Turkey joined Yugoslavia and Romania in a treaty of mutual assistance, and settled outstanding issues. Venizelos nominated Atatürk for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934.
Greece was a signatory to a 1936 agreement that gives Turkey control over the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, and regulates the transit of naval warships. The nations signed the 1938 Salonika Agreement which abandoned the demilitarised zones along the Turkish border with Greece that were a result of the Treaty of Lausanne.
In 1941, due to Turkey's neutrality during the Second World War, Britain lifted the blockade and allowed shipments of grain from Turkey to relieve the great famine in Athens during the Axis occupation. Using the vessel, foodstuffs were collected by a nationwide campaign of Kızılay, the Turkish Red Crescent, and the operation was funded by the American Greek War Relief Association and the Hellenic Union of Constantinopolitans.
During this period, the Greek minority that remained in Turkey faced discriminatory targeting. In 1941 in anticipation of the Second World War, in the Twenty Classes, adult male Armenians, Greeks and Jews were conscripted into labour battalions. In 1942, Turkey imposed the Varlık Vergisi, a special tax that heavily impacted the non-Muslim minorities of Turkey. Officially, the tax was devised to fill the state treasury that would have been needed if Germany or the Soviet Union invaded the country. The tax's main purpose, however, was to nationalise the Turkish economy by reducing minority populations' influence and control over the country's trade, finance, and industries.
Post World War II relations: 1945–1982
Following the power vacuum left by the ending of the Axis occupation after the war, the Greek Civil War erupted as one of the first conflicts of the Cold War. It represented the first example of Cold War involvement on the part of the Allies in the internal affairs of a non-Allied country. Turkey was a focus for the Soviet Union due to foreign control of the straits; it was a central reason for the outbreak of the Cold War In 1950, both Greece and Turkey fought in the Korean War, ending Turkey's diplomatic isolation and brought it an invitation to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ; in 1952, both countries joined NATO; and in 1953, Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia formed a new Balkan Pact for mutual defence against the Soviet Union.According to think tank Geopolitical Futures, three events contributed to the deterioration of post-1945 bilateral relations:
- After the defeat of Italy in the Second World War, the long-standing issue of sovereignty over the Dodecanese archipelago, which had been a sore point since the Venizelos–Tittoni agreement between Greece and Italy, was resolved to Greece's favour in 1946, upsetting Turkey because it changed the balance of power. Turkey renounced claims to the Dodecanese in the Treaty of Lausanne but future administrations wanted them for security reasons, and possibly due to the Cyprus issue.
- After the decolonisation of Cyprus, conflict between Greeks and Turks broke out on the island. In the 1950s, the pursuit of enosis became a part of Greece's national policy. Taksim became the slogan by some Turkish Cypriots in reaction to enosis. Tensions between Greece and Turkey increased, and the ambivalence towards Cyprus by the Greek government of George Papandreou led to the Greek military coup. In 1974, the Greek government staged a coup against the Cypriot president and Archbishop Makarios by invading Cyprus and establishing a Greece-controlled Cyprus government. Soon after, Turkey—using its guarantor status arising from the trilateral accords of the 1959–1960 Zürich and London Agreement—invaded Cyprus. The Turkish Federated State of Cyprus was declared one year later.
- Starting in 1958 and expanded in 1982 for the issue of territorial waters, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea replaced the older concept of freedom of the seas, which dated from the 17th century. According to this concept, national rights were limited to a specified belt of water extending from a nation's coastlines, usually —known as the three-mile limit. By 1967, only 30 nations still used the old three-nautical-mile convention. It was ratified by Greece in 1972 but Turkey has not ratified it, asking for a bilateral solution since 1974 which uses the mid-line of the Aegean instead.
In 1964, Turkish prime minister İsmet İnönü renounced the Greco-Turkish Treaty of Friendship of 1930 and took actions against the Greek minority. An estimated 50,000 Greeks were expelled. A 1971 Turkish law nationalised religious high schools and closed the Halki seminary on Istanbul's Heybeli Island, an issue that affects 21st-century relations.