2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey
2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey
2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey
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62<br />
Svante E. Cornell and Halil Magnus Karaveli<br />
closer relationship to Europe, but will still not have attained membership. An<br />
equally plausible scenario is a much cooler and acrimonious relationship,<br />
where the option of membership has been effectively excluded, but where<br />
both parties continue to maintain an overtly civil relationship. A third<br />
scenario – the complete breakdown of relations and a re-orientation of<br />
<strong>Turkey</strong> away from Europe – is possible but highly unlikely.<br />
Over the last decades, <strong>Turkey</strong> has experienced severe tensions in its relations<br />
with Greece. A Greco-Turkish war, when <strong>Turkey</strong> intervened on Cyprus in<br />
1974, was only averted by the last-minute intervention of the U.S. In 1996, an<br />
incident in the Aegean Sea came close to igniting an armed conflict. Since<br />
the end of the 1990s, however, the relations have improved considerably,<br />
although the unresolved Cyprus issue remains a complication.<br />
With the accession of the Greek-Cypriot administered part of Cyprus to EU<br />
membership in 2004, the traditional Turkish position has come to be<br />
challenged. A majority of the Turkish Cypriot population expressed its<br />
desire to join the Greek Cypriots in a federation that would make them<br />
citizens of the EU. Strong forces in <strong>Turkey</strong>, not least the Turkish military,<br />
oppose “surrendering” Cyprus, for purportedly strategic reasons, but equally<br />
out of nationalist and emotional attachment. The symbolic importance of the<br />
issue for the military should not be underestimated; as has been noted, highranking<br />
generals reportedly plotted to overthrow the AKP government in<br />
2004 when it went along with the UN plan to unite the island. Yet <strong>Turkey</strong> is<br />
ultimately likely to acquiesce in the unification of Cyprus, provided that it is<br />
permitted to retain some sort of military presence on the island.<br />
Turning towards the East?<br />
The end of the cold war catapulted <strong>Turkey</strong> into a much less predictable<br />
neighborhood. As Turkish diplomats liked to say in the early 1990s, their<br />
most predictable and stable borders in the late 1980s had been those with Iraq<br />
and the Soviet Union – both of which became major headaches in the<br />
following decades. During the Cold war, Turkish foreign policy was<br />
exclusively dictated by the imperative of containment of communism.<br />
<strong>Turkey</strong> did not isolate itself from the Middle East and Asia. As early as 1938,<br />
seeking friendly relations with the East, <strong>Turkey</strong> had been among the