Concluding Remarks

differently, Greece was adopting and implementing all sorts of European policies without any exclusion but the Union –in return– was leaving Greece alone in her foreign policy vis-à-vis Turkey, which was the implacable enemy of the country.

Supposedly, the root cause of the nearby Turkish threat was the member states’

neutrality in the bilateral conflicts or their partiality towards Turkey. Greece, therefore, was the only Western country that was being threatened to her territorial integrity, national sovereignty and interests. The widely-held Turkish threat perception in Greece was not reciprocated by Turkey, where paradoxically policymakers almost ignored and disregarded Greece.

Further, Greece’s self-assessment that despite her EU membership, she was all alone being confronted with Turkey, did not correspond to the reflection of Greece in Turkey. Contrary to this Greek self-image, Turkish parliamentarians believed the opposite and maintained that throughout the history Greeks received overwhelming support from the West, and consequently became the spoiled children of the West that were complaining bitterly about the lack of help and support they got.

Turkey, surprisingly, had the anxious thought pattern about the West's exaggeration of the Greek factor in contemporary international politics both in terms of its alleged historical bonds and strategic alliances. Turkey placed limited or symbolic value on her international engagement and participation in organizations or multilateral agreements in that Western-based affiliation and association had always been likely to arouse her mistrust. From this point of view, the West attaches overriding importance to Greece than she deserves, and appreciates and supports her in comparison to Turkey.

This thought pattern might probably be the motive behind shunning any third party (be they countries or organizations) intervention in their bilateral disputes. Put differently, although Turkey appears to be a modern nation-state with the Western-type democracy, which borrowed state structure and institutions and judicial system from the West, apparently, has never felt herself being actually accepted to this bloc.

Greece, on the other hand, strikingly, regarded the organizations in which she was a member as a state apparatus or an intrinsic asset of the state; that is, the country had interiorized her memberships and commitments, to such an extent that the distinction between the country and the organization had disappeared. In this respect, Greece was the tangible and visible form of the EU; it does not necessarily mean that Greece is a profit-seeking country that is keen to exploit this supranational organization neither

politically nor economically. In other words, the EU was equated with Greece, so when the country was threatened it meant the Union was threatened as a whole. Within the Greek perspective, the Turkish threat emerges as a growing direct threat to the Greek world, where the country had firmly anchored historically and geographically.

High expectations of brutal and unlawful violence in Greece affected the politicians’

attitude to Turkey. Turkey defined as an aggressive state seeking to resuscitate Ottomanism (namely Neo-Ottomanism) that had destabilized the political balance and disrupted regional peace. The neighboring country was a potential military threat not only to Greece but also to the EU, to the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Aegean.

Military-based discourses were discernible especially with reference to Turkey in the Greek Parliament. In this respect, Turkey emerges as the only border neighbor of Greece to be faced, despite all the inadequacies of arming against it. Most MPs appeared complaining about the deficiency of the national military forces in comparison to Turkey, which was believed to be armed to the teeth. While some parliamentarians insisted on the benefits of acceleration in the arms race between Turkey and Greece some others argued that a curb on arming would be of more benefit to the country. The noticeable argumentation was about achieving a formidable-self, which would be admirable for friendly countries and fearsome for enemies. Another point to be noted related to national armament was that the logical and moral reasoning behind it. Arming was linked to the concept of national fortification and self-defense, thus it was for defense, not offense purposes, and Turkey held fully accountable for this undesired condition.

In respect of Turkish politicians, on the other hand, neither the amount of money allocated from the country’s budget to the national armament was important nor the level of military technology. Turkish armed forces were not emphasized with these aspects, their obvious references were found limited to the themes such as the Turks’

military prowess in battles, a source of national pride (also espoused in the proverb Turks born as a soldier), and a serious menace to Turkey’s enemies. Considering the parliamentary speeches in general, it can be pointed out that military-based statements were utilized either to frighten Greece (like reminding the Minor Asia Catastrophe or Cyprus) or to degrade the Greek troops (like ridiculing and scorning the Greek soldiers –evzonas– as ‘skirt-wearing’). Greece depicted as a modern state immersed in reverie for her glorious past. The Greek irredentist dream that expressed the national aim at

reviving the Byzantine Empire (namely Megali Idea) referred to as the deepest desire of the country although Greece gradually gave up her claims on Turkish lands.

Following the Turkish War of Independence, Greece refrained from demanding soil in Anatolia, especially on İzmir and İstanbul, which meant a shift in Greek claims that seems to be overlooked by Turkey.

Both countries denounced each other as a calculating manipulator that had been employing othering as a powerful lever for changing the public focus from internal concerns to external ones. The other was displaying aggressive tendencies to compensate its domestic challenges. By provoking an outside other (an out-group), allegedly, the other achieved to persist the homogeneity of its in-group and eliminate the diversity within its society. Therefore, as was asserted in both parliaments, antagonism towards the other, that is generating representations of a positive self vis-a-vis a negative other, worked in providing room for political maneuvers of governments. In this vein, daring to create de facto positions and transforming minor disputes into life-and-death struggles were defined as the innate propensity of the other while the self depicted as a guarantor of stability in the region that resolutely resisted the revisionist other and its encroachment on national territory.

5. TURKISH AND GREEK PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES ON THE