A comprehensive settlement of the potentially explosive issues between Greece and Turkey is not likely until those countries reach a just and mutually acceptable solution to the prickly problem of Cyprus, says Theodore Couloumbis, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and professor of international relations at the University of Athens. He addressed a day-long workshop on "U.S. Foreign Policy and the Future of Greek-Turkish Relations" held at the Institute on June 12. The event--organized by program officers Patricia Carley of the Research and Studies Program and John Crist of the Jennings Randolph Program--explored the issues dividing the two NATO countries.

The workshop also featured presentations by senior fellow Tozun Bahcheli, professor of political science at King's College in Ontario; Nelson Ledsky, former U.S. special coordinator for Cyprus; Ahmet Evin, professor of political science at Bilkent University in Ankara; and Alexis Alexandris, senior research associate at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy in Athens. Attendees included officials from the State Department, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Congressional Research Service, and Pentagon; academics from Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus; and scholars from Washington policy research institutes.

Institute board chairman Chester A. Crocker, research professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University, introduced the speakers.

Settling the Disputes

Greece and Turkey almost went to war in January over two uninhabited islets in the eastern Aegean Sea. The crisis, which was eventually defused after several days of intense U.S. mediation, troubled observers of the region, because it highlighted the resurgence of a long history of tension between the countries over conflicting claims of sovereignty in the region.

Couloumbis said that movement toward a comprehensive settlement of the issues between the two countries depends on Turkey's further integration in Western institutions like the European Union.

Turkey is also adamant about forestalling Greece's goal of extending European Union membership to Cyprus in order to settle the dispute. Bahcheli holds out the hope for a political settlement of the Cyprus dispute between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities themselves.

"To be sure," Bahcheli said, "the terms of any Cyprus settlement have to be acceptable to public opinion in both Turkey and Greece, whose leaders must simultaneously avoid charges from opposition parties of 'selling out' their respective Cypriot communities."

© 1996 United States Institute of Peace