A Rocky Course in the Aegean for Shultz

When Secretary of State George P. Shultz arrives in Athens and Ankara this week on his first official visit to Greece and Turkey, he will find our relatively strained relationship with the Greeks improving and our relatively good relationship with the Turks strained.

His challenge is to shore up both bilateral ties without getting caught in the mine field of animosities that plague not only Greek-Turkish relations but also our connections to each.

U.S.-Greek relations have been difficult ever since Andreas Papandreou and his Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement were voted into power in 1981. Greece has been absent from the Western consensus on issues ranging from the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe to how to respond to the Soviets for their invasion of Afghanistan, their repression of Poland or their shooting down of a Korean airliner. For years Greece has refused to participate in NATO exercises. Its record against terrorism has been poor. The Greek prime minister stated publicly his intention to terminate U.S. access to four important military bases in Greece.

Yet there are clear signs that U.S.-Greek relations are on the upswing. Papandreou never made good on his threat to take Greece out of NATO. American access to military facilities in Greece is good, thanks in large part to an agreement reached in late 1983. Greece has beefed up its airport security and its anti-terrorism effort. And its anti-American rhetoric has softened.

The key to this improvement is the ailing Greek economy. Under Papandreou’s stewardship, inflation has hovered at nearly 20%, unemployment has doubled, growth has slowed and foreign confidence has declined. The government’s austerity program, introduced late last year to rein in public spending and reduce the country’s debt, is leaving the Socialists’ traditional leftist supporters howling. Papandreou’s need to encourage Western investment and tourism dovetails nicely with his need to cool his anti-Americanism lest the United States further consolidate its ties with Turkey at Greece’s expense.

Shultz can reinforce this trend in Greek policy while making clear that there is more for Greece to do. There is no reason for Greece to refuse to participate in all NATO exercises because of differences with Turkey. And the United States must have some clear signal of future access to Greek military facilities beyond the current pact. Were Greece to be forthcoming, the $500 million in security assistance that it receives annually from the United States would be assured and conceivably increased over time by a sympathetic Congress.

While Greek-American relations were experiencing turbulence, U.S. ties to Turkey, Greece’s neighbor and rival, generally improved. The Reagan Administration welcomed the market-oriented reforms of Prime Minister Turgut Ozal and stood by Turkey as it made its way from military rule toward democracy. Strategic cooperation increased with this geographically important country, and aid levels rose to nearly $900 million last year. Trade and investment increased as well.

Yet the relationship is neither as warm nor as solid as it ought to be. Turkey is unhappy with the U.S. Congress, which yearly considers resolutions that hold Turks responsible for the deaths of 1 million Armenians early in this century. Today’s Turks deny the charge and maintain that it only fuels anti-Turkish terrorism. Turkey also resents congressional handling of the annual aid legislation, which, because of concerns over Greece and Cyprus, results in less for Ankara than the Administration requests. Turkey thus has become less prone to work closely with the United States.

There is no way to fully assuage such concerns as these. Turkey cannot be insulated from the American political process. Shultz can only explain the vagaries of our system while pressing Turkey to agree to a new military-base pact, suggesting that Ankara welcome whatever aid it does receive and cooperate on behalf of common interests. Reducing barriers to Turkish exports to the United States would help, as would specific steps to broaden political, economic and cultural ties.

Everywhere he goes, Shultz will be confronted by two issues that have bedeviled American attempts to create stable relations with each country: the Cyprus question and territorial disputes in the Aegean. Greece will press the United States to exert pressure on Turkey to withdraw its approximately 20,000 troops from Cyprus while asking for American support for its Aegean interests. Turkey will argue that its troops must stay in Cyprus until satisfactory political arrangements can be worked out to safeguard the position of the Turkish-Cypriot minority. And Turkey will argue with equal passion the correctness of its claims in, over and under the Aegean.

Here Shultz would be advised to listen but steer clear. There are few if any made-in-America solutions to these protracted and complex disputes. Greeks and Turks will have to find their own answers. A direct dialogue, begun without pre-conditions, might be a good place to start.