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Relations between Greece and Turkey have been marked by mutual hostility ever since Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832. In that time there have been four wars between the two countries - the Greco-Turkish War (1897), the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, the First World War (1914-18) and the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922).

Ottoman era

The Greek state which became independent in 1832 consisted only of the Greek mainland south of a line from Arta to Volos plus Euboia and the Cyclades. The rest of the Greek-speaking lands, including Crete and the rest of the Aegean islands, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia and Thrace, remained under Ottoman rule. More than a million Greeks also lived in what is now Turkey, mainly in the Ionian region around İzmir (called Smyrna by its Greek inhabitants) and in the Pontic region on the Black Sea coast.

Greek politicians of the 19th century were determined to obtain all these territories for a greatly enlarged Greek state, with Constantinople as its capital. This was called the Great Idea (Megali Idea). The Ottomans naturally opposed these plans, and relations between Greece and the Ottoman state were always tense as a result. Greek nationalist feeling was aroused by regular nationalist revolts against Ottoman rule, particularly in Crete, which the Ottomans suppressed with considerable brutality.

During the Crimean War (1854-56), Britain and France had to restrain Greece from attacking the Ottomans, by occupying Piraeus. Again during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 the Greeks were keen to join in and liberate Greek lands from the Ottomans, but Greece was too poor and weak to take any real part in the war. Nevertheless the Congress of Berlin in 1881 gave Greece most of Thessaly and part of southern Epirus.

In 1897 a new revolt in Crete led to the first Greco-Turkish War. The Greeks were unable to dislodge the Ottomans from their fortifications along the northern border and the war ended in humiliation for Greece, with some small losses of territory. This war aroused Turkish nationalist sentiment within the Ottoman Empire and made the position of Greeks in the Empire worse.

The Young Turks, who seized power in the Ottoman Empire in 1908, were Turkish nationalists whose objective was to create a strong, centrally governed state. The Christian minorities, the Greeks and Armenians, saw their position in the Empire deteriorate. Crete was once again the flashpoint of Greek and Turkish nationalism. This led directly to the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, in which Greece seized Crete, the islands, the rest of Thessaly and Epirus, and coastal Macedonia from the Ottomans, in alliance with Serbia and Bulgaria.

The First World War and after

Greece entered the First World War with the intention of seizing Constantinople and Smyrna from the Ottomans, with the encouragement of Britain and France, who also promised the Greeks Cyprus. Although there was little direct fighting between Greeks and Turks, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1918 the Greeks were quick to claim the lands the Allies had promised them. The Treaty of Sèvres (1920) gave Greece eastern Thrace and a large area of western Anatolia around Smyrna. This Treaty, however, was never legally ratified.

The Greeks were unable to defend these territories when the Turks reorganised under Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal Atatürk), who founded a Turkish national army based at Ankara. In the second Greco-Turkish War (known to the Turks as the War of Turkish Independence) the Greeks were routed, and when the Turks captured İzmir they massacred those Greeks who could not escape in time.

In the wake of this conflict there was a violent reaction against the Greek communities throughout the new Republic of Turkey, who were seen as disloyal — as indeed they generally were, identifying more with their Greek heritage than the new Turkish republic. Thousands were killed on both sides in ethnic conflict. To end this situation, the Treaty of Lausanne of July 1923 provided for an exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. About a million Greeks left Turkey for Greece, and about half a million Turks left Greece for Turkey. The exceptions to the population exchange were Istanbul, where the Greek minority (including the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church) was allowed to stay, and the eastern part of Greek Thrace, whose Turkish minority was also allowed to stay. These concessions, however, only created the basis for future conflicts.

This exchange is referred to by some Greeks as the "Pontian genocide" or the "Hellenic Holocaust," although the Turks did not in fact try to exterminate the Greeks. The exchange was an agreement between the two countries to reduce the tensions and the pressure over the minorities living among hostile populations. The relocation has caused damage to all people involved but the intention was to prevent further suffering.

Between conflicts

The postwar leaders of Turkey and Greece, Kemal Atatürk and Eleftherios Venizelos, were determined to establish normal relations between the two states. After years of negotiations, a treaty was concluded in 1930, and Venizelos made a successful visit to Istanbul and Ankara. Greece renounced all its claims to Turkish territory. This was followed by the Balkan Pact of 1934, in which Greece and Turkey joined Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Romania and Albania in a treaty of mutual assistance and settled outstanding issues (Bulgaria refused to join).

The main irritant to Turkish-Greek relations was now Cyprus, a British protectorate whose population was 80 percent Greek and 20 percent Turkish. The Greek Cypriots desired unity (enosis) with Greece, and in 1931 there were nationalist riots in Nicosia. The Turks opposed this, desiring that the British stay in Cyprus indefinitely. The Greek government was forced by its financial and diplomatic dependence on Britain to disavow any desire for unification with Cyprus.

During World War II Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany while Turkey remained neutral. The Greeks suffered terrible privations in the last years of the war and many fled to Turkey as refugees, where the Turks gave them aid. This episode is seldom recalled by anti-Turkish Greek nationalists. After the war both Greece and Turkey joined NATO and thus became at least nominally allies. In 1954 Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia formed a new Balkan Pact for mutual defence against the Soviet Union.

The Cyprus crisis

Main article: Cyprus dispute

In the 1950s the Cyprus issue flared up again, with the Greek Cypriots under Archbishop Makarios demanding union with Greece, and the EOKA group launching a guerilla movement against the British in the island. At first the Greek government gave no support to the movement, but by 1954 Greek public sympathy for the Cypriots was so great that Prime Minister Alexander Papagos took the Cyprus issue to the United Nations.

Turkish nationalist sentiment became inflamed at the idea that Cyprus would be ceded to Greece, and anti-Greek riots broke out in Istanbul and Izmir (formerly Smyrna). It was suspected, and later proved, that the Turkish government of Adnan Menderes had covertly organised the riots, in which many Greeks were killed and many more made refugees. In response Greece withdrew from all co-operation with Turkey and the Balkan Pact collapsed.

In 1960 a compromise solution to the Cyprus issue was agreed on. Cyprus became independent, with a constitution guaranteeing a Greek president and a Turkish vice-president. Both Greek and Turkish troops were stationed on the island to protect the respective communities. Greek Prime Minister Constantine Caramanlis was the main architect of this plan, which led to an immediate improvement of relations with Turkey, particularly once Menderes was removed from power in Turkey.

In 1964, however, the Cyprus situation deteriorated when Makarios, now President of Cyprus, tried to revise the 1960 constitution. The Turks threatened war if Cyprus tried to achieve unity with Greece. In August Turkish aircraft bombed Greek troops in the island and war seemed imminent. Once again the Greek minority in Turkey suffered from the crisis, many Greeks fled the country, and there were even threats to expel the Ecumenical Patriarch. Eventually intervention by the United Nations led to another compromise settlement.

The Cyprus dispute fatally weakened the liberal Greek government of George Papandreou, and in April 1967 there was a military coup in Greece. Under the clumsy diplomacy of the military regime, there were periodic crises with Turkey. Turkey rightly suspected that the Greek regime was planning a pro-unification coup in Cyprus.

The 1974 crisis and after

On 15 July 1974 the Greek military regime staged a coup against Makarios, led by the greek officers leading the National Guard. An ex-EOKA man, Nicos Sampson was appointed president. Makarios escaped to Britain. On 20 July Turkey invaded without any resistance from the British forces in the island, occupying the northern 40% and expelling the Greek population. Once again war between Greece and Turkey seemed imminent, although Greece knew that its military forces would be no match for Turkey's. War was averted when Sampson's coup collapsed a few days later and Makarios returned to power, and the Greek military regime also fell from power on 24 July, but the damage to Turkish-Greek relations was done, and the occupation of northern Cyprus by Turkish troops would be a sticking point in Greco-Turkish relations for decades to come.

An additional complication arose in Greek-Turkish relations during the 1970s: the discovery of oil in the Aegean Sea. The Balkan Wars of 1913 had given Greece all the Aegean islands except Gokceada and Bozcaada (Imbros and Tenedos), some of them only a few kilometres off the Turkish coast. According to the Turkish government, the Greek-Turkish maritime border had never been properly defined, and Turkey now claimed that the seabed resources, namely oil, should be shared by the two countries, while the Greeks insisted that 12 nautical miles (as defined by international treaties) is their territorial right.

Today, the Greek-Turkish dispute over the Aegean sea evolves around four distinct, yet mutually related issues: 1) Sovereignity of the Aegean sea 2) Claims of territorial waters limits within the Aegean Sea, by each side 3) Jurisdiction over airspace zones 4) Sovereignty over unspecified (gray areas) Aegean islands. This last issue arose after the Imia (Greek) / Kardak (Turkish) crisis, which brought the two countries one step away from war.

In recent years relations between Greece and Turkey have considerably improved, although the Cyprus issue has remained unresolved and a constant source of potential conflict. The retirement of the nationalist Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou helped this improvement. His son, foreign minister George Papandreou, made considerable progress in improving relations. He found a willing partner in Ismail Cem and later in Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has little sympathy for the Turkish military and its determination to hang on to northern Cyprus.

In May 2004 Erdogan became the first Turkish prime minister to visit Greece for 16 years, and the first to visit the ethnic Turkish minority in Thrace for 52 years. He called on the Thracian Turks to preserve their heritage while simultaneously maintaining loyalty to their Greek citizenship. The visit was largely symbolic, but did lead to a declaration by Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis that Greece would support Turkey's longstanding bid to enter the European Union.

The continuing improvement of the two countries' relations has been further reinforced by the recent earthquakes that hit Turkey and Greece within a short period of time of each other. This has lead to a mutual sensitization of Greeks and Turks and willingness to help each other in a time of need. But there are certain issues that might incite political and diplomatic problems between the two countries. These are the disputed boundaries in the Aegean sea, and the issue of Cyprus. These days, the possibility of an armed conflict is considered highly unlikely, especially with Turkey's possible ascension to the EU.

Related articles

• History of Greece, History of Turkey and History of Cyprus.
• Foreign relations of Greece, Foreign relations of Turkey and Foreign relations of Cyprus.

External links

• Turkish PM on landmark Greek trip
• Greece-Turkey boundary study by Florida State University, College of Law