The Crumbling Greco-Turk Accord and the Beginning of the End of Turkey's EU Aspirations

摘要

Despite significant progress at the public level of the Greek-Turkish detente after the Helsinki Summit (December 1999), by September 7, 2005, Greece and Turkey were again embroiled over a bitter diplomatic dispute regarding Cyprus. It is a dispute which threatens to derail the initiation of EU-Turkish admission talks scheduled for October 3,2005. Turkey had not merely announced that it would never open its harbors and airports to Cypriot vessels and aircraft — or for that matter to any European vessels or aircraft carrying Cypriot goods — it also annexed a letter to the signing of the Ankara Protocol which it sent to the Turkish Parliament for ratification, stating that it would not implement the provisions of the Protocol as far as Cyprus is concerned, so as to acquire the stature of Law. The events of September 6-7,2005, signaled a further landmark in the modern Greek-Turkish relations. From the Greek perspective, 50 years earlier on these dates the Turkish Menderes-Zorlu Government conceived and executed an attack on Greek Christians still living in Istanbul. An organized mob of 100,000 people systematically vandalized and destroyed, within a few hours, the vast majority of Greek houses, churches and businesses in the 29 Greek neighborhoods of the city.