GREECE’S prime minister, on a historic visit to ancient rival Turkey, yesterday paid tribute to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who founded the modern Turkish republic and once drove Greek armies into the sea.
Costas Karamanlis laid a wreath at Ataturk’s tomb in the Ankara mausoleum but did not visit its museum, which celebrates Turkey’s crushing military victory over Greece in 1922 with models, pictures, memorabilia and recordings of martial music.
Karamanlis is the first Greek leader to pay an official visit to Ankara since his uncle came in 1959 and it caps a decade of steadily improving economic and political ties between the two rivals, which are also NATO allies.
“Kemal Ataturk and [then Greek leader] Eleftherios Venizelos had the political courage, will and vision not to allow the conflicts and tragedies of the past to become an obstacle to… building a better future of peace and co-operation to the benefit of the two peoples,” Karamanlis wrote in the visitors’ book.
After the wars accompanying the collapse of the old Ottoman Empire and the 1923 declaration of the Turkish republic, Ataturk and Venizelos successfully restored cordial bilateral ties. Ataturk, revered by Turks as the “Great Leader”, died in 1938.
Karamanlis and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan promised on Wednesday to increase bilateral trade, now worth $2.8 billion, and to boost tourism, energy and security ties.
The Greek leader also reaffirmed his support for Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union, but said Turkey must meet all EU criteria, including respect for human rights and religious freedoms.
Turkey is home to a tiny Greek Orthodox community, remnant of a much larger population that enjoyed wealth and influence in Ottoman times but now complains of discrimination.
On Wednesday, Karamanlis urged Turkey to normalise relations with Cyprus.
“It is necessary for Turkey to normalise its relations with Cyprus [for its EU bid],” Karamanlis said.
Erdogan called for a redoubling of diplomatic efforts to reunite the island after Cyprus’ presidential elections next month.
“The process after the elections is very important. We expect an effort from Mr Karamanlis to restart the negotiations,” Erdogan said.
After talks with President Abdullah Gul, Karamanlis was due to fly to Istanbul later yesterday to meet Turkish business leaders and Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians.
Bartholomew, an ethnic Greek but Turkish citizen, is based in Istanbul, which as Constantinople was for centuries capital of the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire until its fall to Muslim Ottoman Turks in 1453.
