TURKEY and CYPRUS TURKISH POLICY HAS ROOTS GOING DEEP INTO THE PAST

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30733, 24 April 1965, Page 14

TURKEY and CYPRUS TURKISH POLICY HAS ROOTS GOING DEEP INTO THE PAST

[By the Ankara correspondent of “The Times. I (Reprinted from “The Times. ) Turkey’s rejection of the United Nations mediator’s report on Cyprus had been expected, although the abrupt mannet hmsh tne of it took many people by surprise. Since then there has been a shaip upsurge once again of anti-Western feeling m Tl . ,rkey ] ’ the West-and more especially the Americans-have let Tuikey down.

The speech by Mr Hasan Ishik, the Turkish Foreign Minister, at the C.E.N.T.O. ministerial council in Teheran last week made Turkey’s view on Cyprus clearer than previous Turkish Governments had succeeded in doing. He said, among other things: “No satisfactory solution to the Cyprus question can be found so long as the problem is studied out of its true context.” By this he meant that it was useless to limit the discussions to talks between the Turks and Greeks in the island, because the “true context” was a much wider one involving Turkey, Greece, and the whole eastern Mediterranean.

He repeated the now familiar Turkish view that Cyprus concerns what the Turks call the “territorial balance” between Greece and Turkey which was established by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. That balance, the Turks argue —although they do not like to insist on it too much—was one which resulted from Turkish military victories won by Kemal Ataturk over the Greeks in the field. To give Cyprus to Greece would upset that balance, and therefore unfairly reverse by diplomacy what Ataturk won by his feat of arms. Fear Of A Dream Although Turkey ceded Cyprus to Britain in 1923 without much trouble, she feels it would be quite a different matter to allow the island to go to Greece. This is the basis of Turkish obdurate opposition to “enosis.” Admittedly, the mediator’s report suggests that there should be a voluntary abnegation of “enosis” by the Makarios government: but the Turks are utterly scornful that the Greeks could ever voluntarily give up their dream of expanding Hellenism. Thus the Turkish idea is quite firm and clear: the Cyprus issue is one which must be settled between Turkey and Greece, and can never be settled simply between the two communities on the island, as proposed by Mr Galo Plaza. The Turks were opposed all along to the mediator on this point. Strategically speaking, it was obvious that they would take this line, because the Turks in Cyprus, lead by Dr. Kutchuk, would be no match for the wiles of Archbishop Makarios; whereas, in direct talks with Greece, Turkey holds high cards.

Her ace is probably the Oecumenical Patriarchate, the supreme seat of Greek Orthodox Christianity, which for centuries has been situated in Istanbul. Ever since the anomaly that the patriarchate was left in that city following the Turkish conquest of 1453, the Turks have had a squeeze on it, but especially since Ataturk in 1923 founded the

Turkish secular republic. The Oecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras himself, like his predecessors, is a Turkish subject who, for instance, if he wishes to travel outside Turkey, must apply to the Turkish authorities for a passport and permission to do so. Press Threats There have in recent weeks been some ominously bellicose statements about the patriarchate, not least by President Gursel himself, who recently accused it of having been engaged in “illegal activities” since the founding of the republic. There have been inspired press attacks and demands by Turkish senators and deputies in Parliament for the wholesale removal of the patriarchate from Turkish soil. This is not the first time this has been suggested. The Turkish press periodically takes the line that the supreme office of the Orthodox Church is a “nest of spies” and a “centre of antiTurkish subversion.” Oddly enough, the patriarchate has no precisely defined juridical status in modern Turkey, either under the Treaty of Lausanne or any other treaty. The Turkish delegation at Lausanne made a determined attempt to get the patriarchate out of Istanbul once and for all, but, faced by the horror of Lord Curzon and Venizelos, Mr Inonu, the head of the Turkish delegation, finally agreed that the patriarchate should remain in its traditional city on condition that it abandoned all temporal pretensions enjoyed under the Ottoman Empire and limited itself to exclusively spiritual functions.

The Turks are now taking the line that the patriarchate is not observing this condition and is playing politics over Cyprus, although no very precise charges are ever made against it On the whole the see of Constantinople appears to perform its extremely difficult role in a Muslim country with discretion and dignity. Meanwhile there have been renewed threats by the Turkish press and insinuations by the authorities against the Greek community in Istanbul—still several thousand strong. Some 6000 were either expelled or left of their own accord during 1964. It is not yet certain whether the Turks mean business in their attacks on the Oecumenical Patriarch and the Greek community, but this looks like the preparation for tough bargaining with Greece. Turkey has appointed a friendly but formidable Anlbassador to Greece, Mr Turan Tuluy, who is fully familiar with all these questions. At the same time the present Turkish coalition Government, in which the largest single party, the Justice Party, is still suspect in the eyes of the Army, is probably less able to adapt a moderate tone than was that of Mr Inonu. Soviet Visit

While Turkey’s irritation with the Americans—and to some extent with the west in general—over Cyprus has been brought to a head by the Galo Plaza report, the Turks are at the same time leaning over backwards to keep on good terms with their newfound friends the Russians. The recent reports of Russian arms deliveries to Cyprus form a striking case in point. At any other time these reports would have caused wild anti-Russian outbursts in Turkkey; but now there was hardly a whisper. And the Foreign Minister blandly told me the delivery of American and British arms to the Cypriots was fully as bad as Soviet weapons.

Mr Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister, will visit Ankara from May 17 to 22 and the Turkish Government doubtless hopes to get a further Soviet expression of

support against enosis. As the Russians clearly regard Turkey as important, she will probably get it. At the same time the Turks are very sensitive to charges of neutralism, and always sharplv deny any suggestions that they might leave the western alliances. Nor do they see anything incompatible in their Foreign Minister s statement that Turkey will take Soviet economic aid if she wants to; although if she did take substantial Russian credits, Turkey would be the first N.A.T.O. country to do so. Something is also going on (via Pakistan) between Turkey and China, and it looks as though the Turks are moving towards recognition of Peking. Turkey’s attempts to be friends with countries with which she has for long been cool have recently extended to the Arabs. The successful visit to Ankara of President Bourguiba in March might be described as the warmest contact between Arab and Turk since the two peoples fought on opposite sides in the First World War. Whether this will extend to overcoming the long Turkish distaste for President Nasser remains to be seen. Afro-Asian Block Many Turks are keen to revive the idea, current in the time of Ataturk, that Turkey was the first Asian country to make a revolution against the colonialist west and thereby to win prestige with the AfroAsian block. Turkey's curious position at the fringe of interlocking circles is shown in her strong continuing ideological attachment to the west, in spite of present irritation. Besides the two western alliances, N.A.T.O. and C.E.N.T.0., she is a member of the Council of Europe and associated with E.E.C. But Cyprus with its Muslim versus Christian undertones, has evoked memories and opened old wounds, going deep into the past. Most Turks feel instinctively that people in the west, when it comes to the point, will always side with the Greeks against the Turks, whatever the rights or wrongs of the case may be. because the sentimental and historical ties are too strong. For this reason Turkey must reinsure with the Asian and even the Communist world, as the latest events show.