EUROPE NATO: Facilitator or Alleviator of the Greco-Turkish Conflict?

by Senthil Meyyappan Meyyappan edited by Sean Young

reviewed by DR. KOSTAS

IFANTIS

Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Athens Director of Research, Centre for Policy Analysis and Planning, Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs

AOn August 30, 2022, a Twitter post by the official North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) read “TODAY IS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF TURKISH INDEPENDENCE.

WE JOIN OUR TURKISH ALLIES ACROSS NATO & BEYOND IN CELEBRATION OF THEIR VICTORY AND TURKISH ARMED FORCES DAY.” A mere day later, NATO had deleted the post following a Greek diplomatic statement calling it insensitive and unacceptable behavior from the organization. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded by accusing Greek politicians of manipulating their country’s history to continue hostilities towards Turkey when none were needed. 1 Erdogan went on to accuse Greece of repeating a mistake made back in the early 1900s during the Greco-Turkish War.

In 1952, Greece and Turkey both joined NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an alliance consisting primarily of Western allies who came together after World War II to pledge their support economically, militarily, politically, and diplomatically to one another. Presumptively led by the United States, the alliance has fronted cooperation and collaboration to the rest of the world, but tensions such as this have brought to attention the underlying conflicts, competing interests, and grudges threatening what appears to be on the surface an assortment of countries tethered together by a mutual vision of world politics. But is NATO truly as unified as it projects itself to be? A deeper look at this question will reveal whether NATO as an institution is merely a facade for global politicking or actually a platform of deliberation and cross-continental diplomatic cooperation. Further, what role does and should NATO play in intervening in its member-states’ affairs, both currently and historically, particularly when they clash with one another? The answers to these questions will undoubtedly necessitate a deep look into modern Greek and Turkish politics, but the root cause of these strains between Greece and Turkey will provide insight on NATO’s role in these two countries’ relationship.

Asia minor has been plagued with violence, disputes, and the absence of regional cooperation since the Greco-Persian Wars of the 500s BC. In 1897, Greece saw the small pro-Greece rebellion on the island of Crete as enough of an invitation to finally annex the island. 2 Greece, militaristically unprepared at the time, was unable to overcome the more prepared Turkish army as well as pressure from nearly all the European powers to not escalate tensions in the Balkan region. Greece pulled out and signed a treaty conceding indemnities to Turkey, relinquishing much of its financial sovereignty to the European superpowers. During World War I, Greece and the Ottoman Empire took opposite sides, making use of the opportunity of a global conflict to justify their bilateral one. Following the abdication of Greek King Constantine I, who had been sympathetic to Germany, in 1917 as a result of intense pressure from Britain, France, Russia, and Italy, Greece naturally slid to the Allied Powers. 3 The Ottoman Empire, at the time declining in power and influence over the Asia Minor region, conveniently took sides with the Central Powers. When the Allies emerged victorious, they imposed their will on the defeated powers, failing to consider how this might exacerbate future tensions. Similar to how France released decades of rage on the Germans by crippling post-war Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, Greece was able to force concessions out of a defeated Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Sèvres, which ceded several territories in the Mediterranean to Greece. 4 Immediately after the war, Greece sought to expand these territories further east of Thrace and Izmir, formerly known as Smyrna, which reached onto the Anatolian peninsula. However, when Greek forces continued to advance, the Turkish national movement led by Mustafa Kemal, or Kemal Atatürk—a group that rejected the legitimacy of all documents signed by the Ottomans, including the Treaty of Sèvres that gave Greece Thrace and Smyrna in the first place—successfully halted the Greek advancements at the Sakarya River in 1921. Two years later, the First Greco-Turkish War ended with the Treaty of Lausanne, which returned several islands in the Turkish Strait, as well as Anatolian districts such as Smyrna, back to Turkey 5 It is the final months of this conflict in August-September of 1922 where the Asia Minor Disaster took place as the series of events surrounding the Greek retreat from Izmir following their defeat to Atatürk’s Turkish nationalist forces at the Sakarya River. Izmir is a city in Turkey with a majority of Christian ethnic Greeks, but is surrounded entirely by districts with a Muslim Turk majority. When the Greek army retreated from the ports of Smyrna—unable to defend its interests, territorial claims, and ultimately peoples in Turkish lands—many of the Christian Greeks left with the Greek army in fear of persecution at the hands of Turkish nationalists after the skirmish. Shortly after the retreat, Turkish forces burned the city to the ground, killing thousands of Greeks and Armenians. The city was all but incinerated as the Allied powers watched on, hesitant to intervene in a matter they had determined bore little significance to them. Many ethnically Greek and even Armenian men were deported back into central Anatolia where they faced even stronger persecution while many Greek women endured sexual violence on the shores where they were stranded. 6 The incident further fueled political turmoil within Greece, as angered military leaders demanded Greek King Constantine to abdicate over his failure to protect ethnic Greeks and Greek interests overseas. The King was forced into exile, and over the next several months a massive population exchange took place; hundreds of thousands of ethnic Turks residing in Greece left for Turkey and over 1.5 million ethnic Greeks residing in Turkey left for countries such as Greece, Russia, and even Australia as well as the United States.

Following WWII, Greco-Turkish animosities were renewed through the identity duality of the island of Cyprus, which held both inhabitants of both Greek and Turkish identities. With differing political and diplomatic priorities to each of those populations, both Greece and Turkey saw ownership of the island as key because of their constituents and its geostrategic significance in the Mediterranean. Despite British control, Greece sent soldiers into Cyprus when the pro-Greek Cypriot rebellion emerged. Turkey feared the brutalities that a majority Greek-Cypriot government would impose on the minority Muslim Turkish population by virtue of blatant persecution and responded by themselves persecuting ethnically Greek residents in Istanbul through pogroms in 1955. In 1959, though, the Zurich-London Agreements settled the conflict by declaring Cyprus an independent state altogether, thereby relieving it of all occupations from Britain, Greece, and Turkey. 7 Still, all three nations were named as guarantors of Cyprus’s political integrity and safety moving forward.

In 1974, Cyprus’s new government was overthrown by a brutal dictatorship that had gained power in Greece. This led to Turkey invoking its prerogative as a protector and sending in troops to occupy northern Cyprus. With mounting international pressures, the conflict ended in a ceasefire, but Turkish soldiers remained on the justification of needing to protect ethnic Turks concentrated in the northern segments of the island. By 1976, Greek forces had left the island and the original President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III returned to power. However, tens of thousands of Turkish soldiers remained in northern Cyprus on the premise that their departure would result in the continuation of communal riots. Supported by these forces, Turkish Cypriots even declared a Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC); to date, only Turkey has recognized the sovereignty of such a state. Regardless, UN buffer zones maintained a relative sense of peace and civility between the borders dividing what is being claimed as the TRNC and what is not being claimed as the TRNC.

Even throughout the Cold War, Greece and Turkey remained on hostile terms despite neither willing to take opposing sides. The United States, de facto leader of the NATO bloc, had arranged through its Truman Doctrine for $400 million to be sent to Greece and Turkey in order to assist them in resisting communism in 1947. Truman’s speech that year urging the public to support the bill outlining the transferral of this aid was tremendously successful and Congress approved the plans with speed. Apart from that and intervention in the Cypriot matter, Greece and Turkey saw little to no attention from NATO and its members during the Cold War.

Since then, Greece has frequently alluded to enosis, the idea of a Greco-Cypriot union, and Turkey has frequently intervened with the justification of needing to protect the island’s Muslim minority through inflammatory actions. For example, in 1976, under parliamentary mandate, Turkish ships and seismic vessels were sent to the Aegean Sea where Greece had planned to drill oil in with the intention that if Greece extended their territorial presence into parts of the Aegean that Turkey believed fell under their jurisdiction, they would retaliate with military force. 8

While Cyprus has acted as a singular avenue for materializing Greco-Turkish tensions, the two countries continue to spar and clash over a variety of issues and for a variety of reasons, among which is the renewal of the Asia Minor Disaster. Greece and Turkey have since maintained starkly differing accounts of the Asia Minor disaster, each purporting its own innocence and justifiability. However, most of the international community acknowledges the great sum of deaths of innocent

Greeks at the hands of Turkish nationalist soldiers in Izmir after the Greek army’s retreat. This conflict, though catastrophic, held great significance: it was the end of Greek presence in Anatolia for the first time in thousands of years. Turkey had finally ‘gained independence’ from its primary regional competitor, hence celebrating this moment as Turkish Armed Forces Day, or Victory Day, on August 30th. It is within this context that the official NATO Twitter account extended its wishes to Turkey on the day of the Asia Minor Disaster for having gained independence. In the Greeks point of view, this was received as a NATO stamp of approval for the events that transpired that day. For Greece, it was a sign that NATO was openly greenlighting what it saw as Turkish tyranny and cultural cleansing of ethnic Greeks. With all of this put into perspective, it becomes evident as to why NATO’s position between two of its member-states in Greece and Turkey is highly complicated. While NATO or the global ideological divide justifying its creation had not yet existed at the time of the Asia Minor Disaster, the organization nonetheless bears responsibility for the persisting tensions amongst its members as a result of the event. On the one hand, it must maintain strong ties to Greece, an EU and eurozone country on a European continent that is otherwise strongly aligned diplomatically, militarily, and economically with the U.S. On the other hand, it cannot alienate diplomatic relations with Turkey, a country constantly in risk of being friendly with NATO geopolitical enemy Russia. Moreover, GrecoTurkish tensions have evolved and grown since the Asia Minor Disaster through conflicts like the Cypriot crisis and sovereignly recognized Exclusive Economic Zones in the Mediterranean. From this arises NATO’s predicament and to some extent, insufficiencies as an alliance. While it has served well its purpose as a defense alliance, it has not fared as well in projecting itself as a front unified on levels beyond this. Ideological differences fueled by cultural fragmentation such as the one between Greece and Turkey have demonstrated the fragility of cross-national cooperation and understanding between NATO members.

In the past, NATO has almost unequivocally hidden behind the veil of neutrality in Greco-Turkish confrontations. Even in the Cypriot conflict, NATO declined to intervene, though the United States did demand a Turkish ceasefire and encouraging Turkey and Greece to solve the Cypriot crisis through dialogue. However, the veil has since eroded as a result of circumstances; NATO cannot continue to use neutrality as an excuse to avoid confronting and addressing the glaring rigidity between its member-states. Doing so abrades its legitimacy, since it has shown to accomplish nothing other than breed a reputation of disunity. Additionally, NATO risks vulnerability to Vladimir Putin and Russia. Paradigmatic of this is Turkey’s flirtation with Putin in the past few years. In 2020 the US imposed sanctions over Turkey for its purchase of billions of dollars of missile systems from Russia. 9 Turkey has also been significantly less active in condemning Russia for its annexation of Crimea or aggression against Ukraine when compared to other NATO allies. If NATO is unable to reconcile the differences and hostilities between Greece and Turkey, it may jeopardize its membership’s security to the threat of Russian regional domination Turkey has also been significantly less active in condemning Russia for its annexation of Crimea or aggression against Ukraine when compared to other NATO allies. If NATO is unable to reconcile the differences and hostilities between Greece and Turkey, it may jeopardize its membership’s security to the threat of Russian regional domination.

To return to the matter of what role NATO should play in the political affairs of its member-states, the fragile relationship between Greece and Turkey over the past century reveals a key component of what it means to be unified. While NATO exhibits military unity aimed at a mutual assurance of safety between Western allies, it fails to take into account the plethora of note-worthy sociocultural fractures within its intricate membership network. Paradigmatic of this is the Greco-Turkish antipathy, since much of it traces its roots to hostilities shared between two countries at the border of two continents containing sharply contrasting cultures, ideas, beliefs, and political systems. Turkey has evolved to uptake the role of spearheading Asian, Muslim, and Eastern values whereas Greece has evolved to uptake the role of spearheading European, Christian, and Western values in the region.

NATO feigns unilateral coopetition, yet the larger mistake it appears to be making is failing to address this facade behind-the-scenes by at least attempting to force dialogue as well as bridge the gap between Greece and Turkey. Not only is NATO not pushing the strained relationship between the two countries in a positive direction towards cooperation, but it is actively worsening it through acts of incompetence and ignorance as evidenced by its tweet on August 30th for Turkish Victory Day. Even if complete Greco-Turkish friendship is not within sight of the foreseeable future, NATO should at least pinpoint areas in which it can keep the tension between the two countries stable by avoiding inflammatory actions and encouraging across-theaisle deliberation. It need not firmly pick a side, but simply seek to understand, validate, and give value to the perspectives taken by both parties. An excellent starting point might be restricting social media accounts to wishing those who celebrate a Merry Christmas, Eid Mubarak, or Happy New Years.

References

1 Tasos Kokkinidis, “Erdogan Warns Greece of Making Same Mistake That Led to 1922 Disaster,” GreekReporter. com, accessed October 23, 2022, https://greekreporter. com/2022/08/31/erdogan-warns-greece-hostile-act/.

2 “Greco-Turkish Wars,” Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed October 23, 2022, https://www.britannica.com/event/GrecoTurkish-wars.

3 “Greece Declares War on Central Powers,” History.com, accessed October 23, 2002, https://www.history.com/this-dayin-history/greece-declares-war-on-central-powers.

4 “Greco-Turkish Wars,” Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed October 23, 2022, https://www.britannica.com/event/GrecoTurkish-wars.

5 Ryan Gingeras, “Dogfight over the Aegean: Turkish-Greek Relations in Light of Ukraine,.” War on the Rocks, accessed October 23, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/ dogfight-over-the-aegean-turkish-greek-relations-in-light-ofukraine/.

6 Philip Chrysopoulos, “The Greek Genocide as Recorded in US Navy Diaries,” GreekReporter.com, accessed October 23, 2022, https://greekreporter.com/2022/09/01/the-greekgenocide-as-recorded-in-us-navy-diaries/.

7 George Meneshian, “Greek-Turkish Relations: History, Issues and Perspectives,” LYMEC, accessed October 23, 2022, https:// www.lymec.eu/greek-turkish-relations-history-issues-andperspectives.

8 Ibid.

9 Amanda Macias, “U.S. Sanctions Turkey over Purchase of Russian S-400 Missile System,” CNBC, accessed October 23, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/us-sanctions-turkeyover-russian-s400.html.