5. TURKISH AND GREEK PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES ON THE
5.3. Policy-Based Approaches
5.3.1. Implications of ‘Loneliness’ on Foreign Policy Preferences
According to the Turkish MP Gül it was the bitter truth ever that Turkey’s so-called allies, and countries with whom Turkey had military, economic, or political agreements, unfortunately, “instead of supporting Turkey seemed to be supporting a terrorist organization in Turkey”701. In this respect, the Turk’s “true friends were only the Turkish people”702, and Öcalan’s move from Syria to Europe should therefore have been prevented, for the European countries’ sympathy toward PKK and its terrorists was widely known beforehand. Reportedly, in Europe, there was a common misperception which had arisen in propagating the idea that the Kurds were freedom fighters who had long been discriminated and tormented on the grounds of their Kurdish ethnie. In Gül’s view, the developments such as the Italian foreign minister’s reference to the Sevres Treaty, the appearance of a ‘so-called parliament in exile’, and launching media campaigns to create deceptions, disclosed the loneliness of Turkey against the Western bias and double-standards in Europe.
701 Minutes of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, (18.11.1998): 471. [Gül, FP, the then MP].
702 ibid. [Gül, FP, the then MP].
Conversely, in the Greek parliament, Turkey was apparently not alone and had the support of most European countries for defeating PKK. There were seemingly two integrated reasons behind this opinion. Firstly, the Greek MPs, in general, believed that the Common Foreign and Security Policy, which Greece was particularly interested in due to her threat perception, either was not in actual practice or fell short of expectations. In this respect, although Greece was acting and making her policies in accordance with the common framework of alliance she could not anticipate or predict the others’ political conduct. And secondly, since the CFSP was composed of easy promises and declarations no concrete steps were taken at all703. Economic concerns allegedly could easily prevail over political decisions. Member states had strong economic ties with Turkey, for example, as part of their arms trade. As a result,
“Ocalan [wa]s literally sold in a warfare bazaar of Italy and France, which ha[d]
become the main supplier country [of] weapons systems in Turkey”704. Apart from Italy and France “Germany [wa]s [also] helping Turkey to beat the Kurds”705. MP Chrysanthakopoulos revealed his antipathy to the situation and suggested that there had to be specific clauses for solidarity that would prevent the use of those weapons against members: “It’s a tragic contradiction among EU members; selling weapons to third countries, with the threat of being those weapons used against the European Union itself”706.
Moreover, it was allegedly Greece which was alone in her efforts to save the life of Öcalan. The Greek FM Papandreou argued that it was certainly and solely Greece707 that “contributed to the internationalization of the Kurdish problem” and “to the
703 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (16.02.1999): 4480. [Vasileios Sotiropoulos, ND, the then MP].
704 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (11.02.1999): 4313. [Chrysanthakopoulos, PASOK, the then MP].
705 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, Minutes of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, 9th Term, 3rd Session, 24th Sitting, (18.11.1998): 1356, https://www.hellenicparliament.gr/UserFiles/a08fc2dd-61a9-4a83-b09a-09f4c564609d/18_11_98.txt. [22.05.2018]. [Georgios Tsafoulias, DIKKI, the then MP].
706 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (11.02.1999): 4313. [Chrysanthakopoulos, PASOK, the then MP].
707 It is a very similar argument to that of his predecessor. In Pangalos’s own words: “We’ve even today put pressure on the Presidency, which hasn’t yet done anything, to take the initiative of a meeting of political directors to adopt a common text on the case. And we are the only one to do this, the only one to exercise that pressure. I just learned in the afternoon that Mr. Dini [who was the 51st prime minister of Italy from 1995 to 96 and foreign minister from 1996 to 2001] also joined our point of view. [A]s soon as we learned this incident, we did what could have ensured his life, that is, we publicized it.
Firstly, we announced it before we were asked, and told all governments and all SMEs [small and medium enterprises] that Ocalan was in [a such] situation.” See, Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament (16.02.1999): 4460; PM Nikolaos Akritidis of PASOK was also holding the same opinion that
“Greece’s attitude towards the Kurdish question cannot be questioned” and her contribution leaves no room for doubt. See, Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament (12.03.1999): 5272-5273.
acceptance by [her] partners in the European Union that the Kurdish affair, regardless of their opinion on the PKK, [wa]s an international problem”708. In a similar fashion, since PASOK was “the only government in Europe and around the world”709, which had striven for securing an escape route for the most eminent leader of the Kurdish movement by holding humanitarian reasons, the PM Simitis asserted that “[n]o one c[ould] be ignorant of what this country did, despite its dangers, despite international associations, despite the difficulties that exist[ed] on the international stage”710. It was allegedly the moment when “[e]veryone wanted to get rid of Ocalan”711 only Greece,
“sought solutions and ways to offer humanitarian support to the leader of the persecuted people”712. In this respect, “Greece [would] not apologize nor give any explanation to anyone, nor to Turkey, which [had been] infring[ing] international law and human rights, or to any allies”713 because the country was compelled –though not preferably– to help Öcalan due to the passive attitude and perverse obliviousness of the EU.
Additionally, MP Papariga claimed that the EU assured Greece of her borders’ safety with the CFSP. Although “the EU state[d] that the Greek borders [we]re the borders of Europe”714 it was recently suggested that recourse to the International Court might work as a means of solving disputes with Turkey in the Aegean. Subsequently the Greek borders became much more fragile and prone to threats. Asserted by the MP Kolozof “the Greek people ha[d] the illusion that with the Common Foreign Policy there w[ould] be the borders of Europe which w[ould] protect and guarantee [them]
from Turkey, [but] it didn’t at all”715. According to MP Micheloyiannis, the Öcalan case was also an unfortunate outcome of the CFSP in that it did not boost a sense of community among its members716:
708 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (05.03.1999): 5053. [Papandreou, PASOK, the then FM].
709 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (12.03.1999): 5293. [Athanasios Alevras, PASOK, the then MP].
710 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (05.03.1999): 5024. [Simitis, PASOK, the then PM].
711 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (12.03.1999): 5287. [Kounalakis, SYN, the then MP].
712 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (17.02.1999): 4535. [Pachtas, PASOK, the then Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs].
713 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (05.03.1999): 5023. [Simitis, PASOK, the then PM].
714 ibid, 5038. [Papariga, KKE, the then MP].
715 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (16.02.1999): 4455. [Orestis Kolozof, KKE, the then MP].
716 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (17.02.1999): 4506. [Joseph Micheloyiannis, PASOK, the then MP].
[GR] “As no one can ignore the fact that this inhumanity of the Member States of the European Union –which have no borders with Turkey and have no security problems with Turkey, which have no disputes with Turkey– the attitude of these states led to the [current] impasse and burdened Greece with this issue”.
Moreover, MP Sotiropoulos noted that “Europe, as a single entity, [wa]s absent from the developments in Kosovo”717, where another ‘failure’ of the CFSP was staged.
Reportedly, the CFSP was not politically objective that it did not support territorial stability of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and once again remained as empty pronouncements. Thus, “Europe [wa]s extremely friendly to Muslims, [and]
completely hostile to Kurds”718. By designating Turkey as the joint point of reference, the analogy between a religious belief and an ethnos was furthered by MP Arapi-Karagianni: “Nowadays, in the neighboring Balkan countries, some war scenes unfold, with Turkey's Muslim bow which she wants to portray as a future threat”719.