Obama's Turkey trip upsets Greek political circles

Is Obama going to abandon the approach of his predecessor President Bush in viewing Turkey as a "moderate Islamic" country? Are the Americans going to focus their policies on the secularist democratic character of Turkey as a unique example in the Middle East and use it accordingly? Is Turkey going to be used just to help out the mess of the Americans in the region or is Ankara rightfully winning the war of becoming an important power in the region through its clever and skillful policies?

In Greece, the visit of Barack Obama to Turkey caused a lot of stir as it is not to be followed or preceded by a presidential visit to Greece. In spite of the statement of Hillary Clinton that she talked with her Turkish counterpart the issues concerning the "Ecumenical Patriarchate", the "Chalki Seminary" and the progress of the Cyprus talks- the impression of the Greek side was that the age-old American foreign policy principle of treating Turkey and Greece on the basis of a fine political balance was broken.

Visits by American officials to Turkey were customarily followed by parallel visits to Greece. Take the last visit by an American president to Greece: Bill Clinton came to Athens on Nov. 19, 1999 directly after visiting Ankara. In Ankara Clinton had talked to the leaders about the prospects of Turkey entering the European Union and had consoled earthquake victims, a memory which Secretary Clinton recalled during her recent visit. But the visit to the Greek capital did not have the pleasantries of Turkey. He was received by a barrage of anti-American public protests which were accentuated by the relatively recent impact of the American attacks in Yugoslavia. Still, he steered through well by saying that he understood the anti-American sentiment in Greece and apologized publicly for Washington’s support of the 1967 military coup in Greece.

Five years later, in June 2004 President George Bush was received with equal hostility in Turkey in the midst of Iraq war. One month earlier President Bush in Washington had asked Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis to be excused because he would not be able to come to Greece to watch the opening of Olympics of 2004 due to "the election period in the U.S". In order to save the tradition, his father, former president George Bush Sr., came at the head of a delegation to attend the opening ceremony of Athens Olympics.

Ten years after President Clinton’s visit, the geostrategic changes in the Middle East, the expansion of NATO and EU, the change in energy policies, and unresolved regional issues of the American policy, like Iraq or Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan plus the nightmare of a global economic crisis have apparently pushed Turkey more to the centre stage leaving Greece behind. In that sense, much to the displeasure of Athens, Obama’s visit next month will break new diplomatic ground, and redefine a historical diplomatic tradition keeping the triangle of Washington, Athens and Ankara intact. Upgrading the status of Turkey in the region cannot but worry the Greek side who fear that they may not be able to count on the neutrality of their American allies towards bilateral issues like the Aegean, the status of the Patriarchate and the protection of the Istanbul Greek Orthodox minority or even the issue of Cyprus.

However, Greek analysts Ğlike their Turkish colleagues- have not yet deciphered the finer characteristics of this new American policy. "Barack Obama is going to Turkey to avert the tendency of the country to slide "towards the East" and to incorporate it in the new foreign policy he is launching in the Middle East, from the Israel-Palestine conflict to the Syria-Iran relations. At the same time, on a practical level, he needs the cooperation of Turkey for the smooth withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq in the next 18 months," writes a commentator of Kathimerini newspaper who puts forward an interesting point that the US will want to put pressure on the EU to accept Turkey in order to keep Turkey inside the Western camp thus controlling its "Neo-Ottomanist" tendencies. If that is correct then Hillary Clinton’s remark that the US defines a country not on the basis of religion but on the basis of democratic principles" may be a reflection of that new political thesis.

In Greece, with a government and an opposition embroiled in a blatant fight, in an atmosphere of disappointment, rising public protests, steep increase of criminality and a serious economic crisis still ahead, Obama's visit to Turkey became yet another platform for a domestic confrontation. "The problem that our country faces is not the enlargement of its diplomatic presence in the region, because this is simply unattainable," writes a commentator in Imerisia newspaper. "Foreign policy is the reflection of the internal power of governments. Only then they can exert their influence on their environment. It does not come from the fantasies of politicians, academics and professional analysts," continues the same commentator while the anti-government Ethnos accuses the Karamanlis government for leading the country to a "bizarre isolation, a diplomatic agoraphobia, with only one exception; the energy cooperation between Greece and Russia and the veto that Greece put against the admission of FYROM to NATO."

The barrage of domestic attacks about the inability of Greek diplomacy to sustain its importance against Turkey in the eyes of the American administration, reached the Greek-American lobby. Critics in Greece even a suggested that the visit of Obama to Turkey bypassing Greece constitutes a defeat for the Greek-American lobby’s prominent members, some of whom are now members of the new Obama staff. They are quite adamant that this is not a defeat for the Greek side. On the contrary, they say, we should see it as an opportunity. Obama’s trip to Turkey is related at the moment with specific issues like Iraq, Iran, Palestine, perhaps the Armenian issue, they say. Not with Greece or Cyprus.

"Obama most probably will visit Greece (later) but with different agenda which will include Cyprus, Aegean and FYROM," they say.

But does that not confirm indeed that the tradition of keeping a balance between Athens and Ankara has been revised?