Foreign Desk Report
BRUSSELS/ ANKARA: After a five-year hiatus marked by grievances over their rival claims to Mediterranean waters, Turkey resumes talks with Greece on Monday in the first test of its hopes to reverse deteriorating relations with the European Union.
While diplomats say that rebuilding trust will be a hard slog, the talks follow Turkey’s decision to stop its search for gas in disputed waters which angered Greece and Cyprus and a cooling of rhetoric around Ankara’s wider disputes with the EU.
They could also pave the way for an imminent visit to Turkey by EU leaders.
Both sides say there is political will to improve relations, but after years of rancour over refugees, human rights, maritime claims, Turkey’s military interventions and the divided island of Cyprus, rapprochement appears a distant prospect.
Expressing guarded optimism, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters he saw a “window of opportunity” but that Ankara needed to “abandon this line of confrontation” and seek dialogue. President Tayyip Erdogan, who has accused the bloc of “strategic blindness” towards Turkey, told EU ambassadors in Ankara this month he was ready to improve ties.
Diplomats say it will need more than a shift in tone and the withdrawal of Turkey’s survey vessel from disputed waters to silence calls from some EU states for sanctions on Ankara, which EU leaders will discuss in March. “I don’t see any great reconciliation to move us off the trajectory we are on. It is going to take a significant gesture from Turkey,” one diplomat in Brussels said, adding there was no reason to be optimistic.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, in Brussels this week on a mission to maintain what he called the “positive atmosphere” between Ankara and the EU, said on Friday talks on Cyprus would be held in New York in the next two months.
Erdogan’s effort to build bridges with Turkey’s main trading partner comes as his government struggles with an economic slowdown. While the COVID-19 pandemic has been the main brake on growth, international tensions have also weighed on the economy.
Setting out a new economic path in November, Erdogan also promised reforms of Turkey’s judiciary after repeated criticism from Western allies who say the rule of law has eroded in Turkey after a 2016 coup attempt and subsequent crackdown. Turkey has ignored several rulings by the European Court of Human Rights calling for the release of the country’s most prominent detainees, Kurdish politician Selahettin Demirtas and businessman Osman Kavala.
Erdogan has yet to spell out what measures will be taken, but has ruled out releasing the two men. “How much Turkey will be able to meet its expectations from the EU without taking any (reform) steps is doubtful,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and head of Istanbul-based Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies. Better ties with Europe may also depend in part on how much Ankara can address differences with the new administration in the United States, after Washington imposed sanctions on Turkey last month over its purchase of Russian defence systems.
