Karamanlis visits Turkey

[Ellinas]

After 48 years a Greek Prime Minister pays an official visit to Turkey. Costas Karamanlis will be in Ankara on Wednesday and in the afternoon he will meet Turkish Prime Minister Racep Tayyip Erdogan.

Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyiannis and her Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan will be present at the meeting.

On Tuesday, Karamanlis underlined his government's desire for better relations between Greece and Turkey, during an interview given to the Turkish news agency Anadolu a day before the start of his official visit to Ankara.

"I will be the first Greek prime minister to visit Turkey after an interval of 48 years. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and I will have an opportunity to focus on Greek-Turkish relations and their future," he said.

Emphasising that the Greek government was doing everything in its power to improve relations, he also repeated Athens' support for Turkey's European prospects and said it was the right time to take action in order to boost bilateral ties.

During the interview, Karamanlis pointed to the major progress made in bilateral trade and investments and noted that the volume of trade between the two countries had risen to three billion US dollars in 2007 from a mere 200 million dollars in 1999.

He also listed positive developments in tourism between the two countries and the Greek-Turkish natural gas pipeline, which was the result of bilateral cooperation.

At the same time, he pointed to serious bilateral problems that were still outstanding and needed a resolution, such as finding a viable solution to the Cyprus issue based on a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation.

Regarding Turkey's prospects of joining the EU and the opposition voiced in some quarters of Europe, Karamanlis said the EU had an obligation to send a "clear message to all candidate-countries, including Turkey".

"Greece believes that if Turkey fully complies with the EU acquis, then this will lead to its full accession," the Greek premier stressed.

He noted that Turkey had a long way to go before reaching this target, however, and expressed hope that it would succeed in meeting EU criteria.

"It must, also, settle its relations with Cyprus and recognise it," Karamanlis underlined.

Asked to state his message to the Turkish people during his visit, the Greek prime minister said his message was crystal clear: Greece desires to fully restore relations with Turkey:

"The two countries must make efforts to resolve their differences peacefully and on the basis of international law," he said, expressing a hope that Ankara would respond to the "hand of friendship extended by Greece".

ANA-MPA

[Behelit]

Τhis bastard Karamanlis lays a wreath in the monument of Kemal Ataturk.


To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


How can he do that?How can a Greek do that?


......

[Behelit]

How times have changed.

Back in 1996, Greece and Turkey came to the brink of war in a dispute over a pair of uninhabited rocky outcrops in the Aegean Sea. Now Greece is an enthusiastic supporter of Turkey's membership of the European Union.

How times have changed.

Back in 1999, Turkey's most wanted man - the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan - was found hiding in the Greek embassy compound in Kenya. This year, the Greek Prime Minister, Costas Karamanlis, was the guest of honour at the wedding in Istanbul of the daughter of his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Things are not perfect. Turkey and Greece still have very real differences about Cyprus and about territorial disputes in the Aegean. But on both sides, strategic decisions have been taken that they should make an effort to get along.

The days when a Greek foreign minister described the Turks as "murderers, rapists and thieves" seem to have gone for good.

How did it happen? Well, there had been pressure for years from within Nato and the EU for the two countries to resolve their differences in a more mature fashion.

And when Turkey and Greece were hit by devastating earthquakes in quick succession in the second half of 1999, politicians were quick to send rescue teams, clothing and food supplies.

"Earthquake diplomacy" was born and ordinary people on both sides suddenly realised how much they had in common.

It set the mood for practical political co-operation on issues like tourism and environmental protection and over the last few years relations in the eastern Mediterranean have moved onto a more secure footing.

Greece in particular decided that encouraging Turkish membership of the European Union was in its interests. Better, the politicians reasoned, than an angry Turkey shut out of the European process and looking for someone to blame.

They have not convinced everyone, though. An opinion poll released in Greece this week showed ordinary people divided pretty evenly over whether Turkey should eventually be allowed into the EU.

There was only a narrow majority in favour. On both sides of the Aegean, residual nationalist suspicions linger on.

But if Turkey still has a real Greek "enemy" in the EU then he does not live in Athens. The Greek Cypriot President, Tassos Papadopoulos, is a wily hardliner who now sits at Europe's top table.

Since the enlargement of the EU on 1 May 2004, he holds a long-term veto over Turkey's EU application, and he will continue to apply pressure in various forms over the next few years.

When the two sides of Cyprus voted on a United Nations peace plan earlier this year it was the Turkish Cypriots, with the encouragement of Mr Erdogan's government in Ankara, who said yes. The Greek Cypriots, influenced by Mr Papadopoulos's tearful pleas on television, rejected the plan overwhelmingly.

Ironically, it meant the Turkish Cypriots were kept out of the EU, and away from the benefits it would bring. Any move to ease the embargo on the self-declared Turkish Cypriot state has been blocked by Mr Papadopoulos and his diplomats.

So there are still plenty of obstacles for the Turks to overcome in their efforts to enter the EU. Cyprus, and disputes in the Aegean, will have to be sorted out sooner or later.

It does not have to happen immediately, but both issues will continue to cast a shadow as long as they remain unresolved. Compromise will not be easy, but with better relations between Ankara and Athens, at least it no longer looks impossible.

SOURCE :
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[Behelit]

I hope that a nationalist will make him pay this

[Ellinas]

Originally Posted by Behelit
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

How times have changed.

Back in 1996, Greece and Turkey came to the brink of war in a dispute over a pair of uninhabited rocky outcrops in the Aegean Sea. Now Greece is an enthusiastic supporter of Turkey's membership of the European Union.

Typical phlegmatic English bullshitting: "dispute over a pair of uninhabited rocky outcrops in the Aegean Sea". This pair of rocky outcrops is part of the Dodecanese according to the treaty of Paris and their claim by Turkey was not a claim of two rocky outcrops, but open the way for a lot of more claims by Turkey, the issue with the 12 miles being a part of them.
Besides this, Simitis' government wasn't different than Karamanlis regarding the policies with Turkey. They were supporting Turkey's membership of the EU as well. The Imia crisis happened because the municipality of Kalimnos and the Hellenic Army reacted, not the government. The government was even trying to stop these reactions. And the whole crisis had this ending foor Greece because of the government's handling.

Now regarding Karamanlis' visit to Turkey. To be honest I was impressed when I heard Karamanlis mentioning the issues of the Patriarchate and the Theological School of Chalki in the press conference. After all the obsequiousness the government of ND was expressing to the American interests, I did not expect this. But laying a wreath to the monument of Kemal was a big foul. The Prime Minister of Greece can't honor a person who is responsible for the slaughter of at least 500,000 Greeks and islamized violently millions of others less than 100 years ago. Karamanlis should not do it. It's like going in Germany and laying a wreath for Hitler or going in Russia and laying a wreath for Stalin. I am not against Karamanlis' visit to Turkey, but if cancelling it would be the only way to avoid laying a wreath for Kemal, then cancel it.

[half greek]

Constantinos Karamanlis supports the accession of Turkey to the European Union. If this finally becomes true, then Greece and the rest of Europe will be swamped with millions of Turkish Muslims with a European passport.

When Prime Minister Mr Karamanlis asked for his reading preferences, he said that “he reads with persistence and patience the leftist intellectuals, such as "Marx”. The historical worldview of New Democracy is unashamedly anti-conservative: it pays homage to those who struggled for the establishment of a communist dictatorship in Greece. In his visit to the island of Agios Eustratios, where communists where deported during the Greek Civil War, Mr Karamanlis said that “he pays homage to the citizens who were persecuted and suffered at this place” and pledged to secure the necessary funds (440.000 Euros) to convert the place to a … “Museum of Democracy”.


To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


Just another another commie Zionist puppet, just hope Tassos Papadopoulos is re-elected in Cyprus other wise no one will veto the Turks bid to join the European Union.

[Prokomenos]

I still dont think Turkey is going to get into the EU.

[Angelo]

Karamanlis lays a wreath in the monument of Kemal Ataturk,andTurkey reaction to

karamalis visit for peace.


To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


Nice neighbours we have

[Anngora]

Originally Posted by Prokomenos
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I still dont think Turkey is going to get into the EU.

I was always and strongly in favour of Turkey's membership to the European Union,and all these years Greece vetoed Turkey's candidancy. And now I'm strongly against it, this time Greeks don't veto,on the contrary Karamanlis has became Erdoğan's best man. Something is wrong with Greeks. Or with me.

[half greek]

Originally Posted by Anngora
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I was always and strongly in favour of Turkey's membership to the European Union,and all these years Greece vetoed Turkey's candidancy. And now I'm strongly against it, this time Greeks don't veto,on the contrary Karamanlis has became Erdoğan's best man. Something is wrong with Greeks. Or with me.

No their is nothing wrong with you only the idiots who want the Turks in Europe!