Turkish PM visits Greece as Cyprus remains divided

Erdogan to meet Karamanlis for first time since rejection of UN plan

American support. US Secretary of State Colin Powell (right) shakes hands with the Turkish-Cypriot administration’s leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, following their historic meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York on Tuesday. Powell told Talat that the USA would provide aid to ease the Turkish Cypriots’ economic isolation.

By Didier Kunz - Agence France-Presse

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due in Athens today for a two-day visit aimed at boosting ties with Greece, despite the still-fresh failure to help resolve the thorny issue of Cyprus.

Erdogan, who will travel with a group of Turkish business leaders, is to meet separately with his counterpart Costas Karamanlis and Greek President Costis Stephanopoulos, and then make a private visit on Saturday to the small Turkish-speaking community in northeastern Greece.

The visit, Erdogan’s first since Karamanlis came to power after his party’s election victory in March, “confirms that Greek-Turkish relations are evolving in a climate which continues to improve and deepen,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman George Koumoutsakos.

The two prime ministers, both young political conservatives, last met at a summit in Sarajevo in April, and have “a very good rapport,” the spokesman said.

This week’s meeting will be their first since Greek-Cypriot voters torpedoed a UN plan to end the 30-year division of Cyprus with a strong “no” vote in a referendum on April 24.

Turkish Cypriots, on the other hand, ignored opposition from their leader Rauf Denktash and voted strongly for the reunification.

Both Greece and Turkey participated in pre-vote negotiations. While Karamanlis quietly backed the plan, Erdogan campaigned especially hard in its favor, which many analysts said would have significantly advanced Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

After its failure, only the internationally recognized Greek-Cypriot south entered the EU on May 1, while the self-proclaimed Turkish-Cypriot state in the island’s north remains outside and unrecognized by all countries save Turkey.

Despite the Cyprus failure, analysts in Athens and Ankara have stressed the importance of improving ties between the neighboring states, longtime rivals and co-members in NATO.

Karamanlis has often expressed his support for Turkey to join the EU, while his foreign minister, Petros Molyviatis, has repeated that bolstering bilateral ties was a “strategic objective” for Greece.

Erdogan’s visit has a strong economic angle as well, with the review of a dozen trade deals made since 1999 between the countries at the top of the agenda.

The officials will also seek to find agreement on the long-running problem of territorial and air control rights in the Aegean Sea, which has often set the states at loggerheads.

According to Turkish press reports, Erdogan could also seek Karamanlis’s help with the problem of getting Turkish goods through EU customs.

Since May 1, when 10 mostly eastern and central European countries joined the bloc, the new customs controls along the expanded EU borders have radically slowed traffic, leaving over 1,500 Turkish goods-filled trucks stranded.

Erdogan’s final stop in Greece will be to an area called Western Thrace by Turks and Thrace by Greeks. He will be the first Turkish premier in a half-century to visit the 100,000-strong Turkish-speaking community there.

Athens recognizes the community as Muslim but not ethnic Turkish, and Greek media has worried that Erdogan’s visit would stir controversy.