[Russian Imperial and] Soviet Relations with Greece and Turkey:
A [Comparative International] Systems Perspective
Robert M. Cutler
This chapter is made available in
 full text.
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AbstractThis book chapter introduced the systematic study of comparative
international systems before the topic became more widely current in international relations theory. It examines the
foreign policy of the Russian state, in its various historical incarnations, towards the Balkan/Asia Minor (including East
Mediterranean) region, especially Russia’s relations with
the various Turkish and Greek states that have existed in the modern era. Beginning with a theoretically informed
review of that region under a succession of four international systems from 1713 to 1936, this comprehensive survey of war,
diplomacy and international law generates a set of
propositions associating specific changes in the international systemic environment with specific changes in the
behavior of states in the region. Examining the evolution the regional international system in its connections with the general
international system from 1936 to 1974 motivates revisions to
those propositions. A further study of the period from 1974 through the 1990 introduces additional nuances and corollaries and permits an evaluation of Greek and Turkish
relations with the USSR in the late 1980s. Based on research executed in 1989–90, conclusions are reached that predict
the course of those relations into the future. Despite having been completed nearly two years before the disappearance of the
Soviet state from the map, the chapter correctly predicted the
foreign of policy of the “Russian state” (in the event, the Russian Federation) towards the region following the
unforeseen disintegration of the Soviet state. There are 47 explanatory and bibliographical notes incorporating sources
and studies in English, French, German, and Russian.
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Contents
- From Utrecht to Montreux: The Historical Inheritance
- From Montreux to Nicosia: The End of the Interwar League
System and the Rise of the Nuclear Superpower System
- From Nicosia to the Present: The Decline of the Nuclear
Superpower System and the Rise
of Multipolar Interdependence
- Conclusion: The Soviet Union and the Balkan/Asia Minor
Region
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Suggested citation for this
webpage:
Robert M. Cutler, “[Russian Imperial and] Soviet Relations with
Greece and Turkey: A [Comparative International] Systems
Perspective,” in Dimitri Constas (ed.), The Greek–Turkish
Conflict in the 1990s (London: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 183–206
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[ page 183 ]
[Russian Imperial and] Soviet Relations with Greece and Turkey: A [Comparative International] Systems
Perspective
Robert M. Cutler
The geography of the Balkan/Asia Minor region conditions military thinking.
Even advances in the military application of technology cannot alter this.[1] The political salience of the region's geography has only increased since
the end of World War II. The eastern Mediterranean is a potential choke-point interdicting oil
supplies destined for NATO's European members. Turkey exerts pressure against the eastern flank
of the Warsaw Pact, diminishing the latter's freedom to move against NATO in Central Europe. Any
conflict in Central Europe would give Turkey an important role in maintaining freedom of the seas
and in monitoring military deployments by both alliances.
The Dardanelles and the Bosphorus are the source the region's sensitivity in a
multiplicity of international contexts over time. The Turkish Straits remain the only egress for
the Soviet navy from the Black Sea to the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. The Straits and adjacent
Thrace are one of the few regions in Europe where a Blitzkrieg maneuver by Warsaw Pact
forces might seize appreciable territory before NATO reinforcements could arrive.
Command-and-control targets in Bulgaria and the southern Soviet Union are vulnerable to tactical
aircraft based in Turkey. Two dozen American military bases in Greece provide intelligence
facilities and essential logistic support.[2]
The Balkan/Asia Minor region straddles the European and Middle Eastern subsystems of the
general international system. In particular, the Balkan subregion of Europe and the southwest Asian subregion of
the Middle East intersect in Greece and Turkey. The dispersal of peoples, cultures, and states across the region
changes, yet unchanging geography remains the framework of current political conditions
[ page 184 ]
and constrains their evolution. Such continuities make an analytical summary of the region's
history worthwhile. The first section of this chapter presents a theoretically informed overview of Greek and
Turkish relations with Russia and the Soviet Union. In particular, a comparative survey of the Balkan/Asia Minor
region under various international systems from 1713 to 1936 generates a set of propositions. These propositions
associate specific changes in the international environment with specific changes in the behavior of states in
the region. The third section of the chapter examines in detail the period since 1974, in a comparative systems
perspective. On this basis, the propositions derived from the historical record are again scrutinized. Nuances
and corollaries introduced to the original propositions then permit an evaluation of current Greek and Turkish
relations with the Soviet Union. The general course of these relations in the future is then projected.
The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) created the "European State System [as] an
indissoluble unity [where] all States, east and west, were involved in every contest between any
of its members."[3] Since then, six distinct
international systems have occupied the European stage: The European Balance, 1713–1789;
The Concert of Europe, 1815–1866; The Bismarckian System, 1871–1914; The Interwar
League System, 1919–1939; The Nuclear Superpower System, 1949–1979; and Multipolar
Interdependence, since 1979. To make the text more concise, the justification of these dates
appears in relevant notes.[4]
This section surveys relations among Greece, Turkey, and the Soviet
Union/Russia[5] from 1713 up to the decline of the Interwar
League System. The year inaugurating that decline (1936) is also that of the Montreux Convention
governing the Turkish Straits. The general propositions emerging from this history are therefore
called "lessons of pre-Montreux history."[6] Some
of them reflect constants transcending historical states and international systems in the region.
Others establish that particular changes in the international environment account for particular
changes in state behavior in the region.
[ page 185 ]
The European Balance was bipolar; Europe was continually divided into two antagonistic blocs.
During all this time, Russia was not terribly concerned with the Greek nation. Catherine the Great's "Greek
project" in the 1760s sought only to use Greek Orthodox clergy as agents of Russian influence in the
Balkans. Toward the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Tsar endorsed Ottoman suppression of the Greek national
revolt. One reason was that the unrest worked against Russian interests. Another reason may have been the
demographic analogy between the multinational Russian state and the multinational Turkish state. During the life
of this international system, the Russian and Ottoman Empires were strong states in the system and
vis-à-vis one another, and their mutual relations were conflictual.
The Concert of Europe was a multipolar system founded by a coalition of states
on the principle of public law and on the norm that diplomatic practice should follow legal
precedent.[7] Greek affairs were marginal to Russia during
the Concert of Europe. Even Russia's qualified support for Greek independence in the 1820s was
but a by-product of its desire "to maintain Turkey as a weak power and to advance and expand
Russian political and commercial interests" in the region.[8] Greece's internal problems after the Crimean War effectively prevented the
country from playing any significant international role. During the Concert of Europe, Russia was
strong until its defeat in the Crimean War, whereas the Ottoman Empire was weak. Russia's loss of
prestige during the Concert's decline yielded a relative increase in Turkish strength. However,
both states remained weak vis-à-vis the international system. Mitigated antagonism before
the Crimean War, and unmitigated antagonism after it, characterized relations between Russia and
Turkey.
This was a unipolar but not hegemonic system. Germany as fulcrum did not value the Balkans
greatly, and Bismarck as Chancellor mediated Austro–Russian disputes in the region. Russia's pan-Slav
[ page 186 ]
impulses in the Balkans antagonized Greece. The establishment of a Bulgarian
state, with all its implications for Greek Macedonia, formed the basis of Imperial Russian policy
in the Balkans during the crucial years 1875–1878.[9]
Principally because of Bismarck's reinforcement of Russia's and Austria's positions in the
Balkans at Turkey's expense, the Russian Empire was a strong state at the height of this system,
while the Ottoman Empire was a weak one. However, Japan's defeat of Russia in the 1904–05
war and the 1905 Russian revolution greatly sapped Russia's power during this system's decline.
Relations between Russia and Turkey were antagonistic throughout the life of the Bismarckian
system.
The Interwar League System was a multipolar system that attempted, like the
Concert of Europe, to found the practice of diplomacy upon public law and legal precedent. It did
not abolish the practice of power politics, and this led to its demise. From 1920 to 1936 Turkey
and the Soviet Union shared an interest in opposing the West in general and Great Britain in
particular.[10] The USSR supported Turkey at negotiations
over a regime to regulate the Straits (Treaty of Lausanne, 1922), and the two countries
subsequently agreed on a series of bilateral protocols on naval tonnage (1931). After Hitler's
rise to power Turkey became caught between Soviet and German imperatives, and
Turkish–Soviet relations deteriorated. During the Interwar League System, the Soviet Union
and the Turkish Republic were both very new and very weak states.[11] Their common weakness led them to cooperate on a series of bilateral and
multilateral issues until the mid-1930s. In the 1930s, disputes over the Macedonian question
erupted inside the Communist International among the Greek, Bulgarian, and Yugoslav communist
parties. When the USSR forced a policy favoring Macedonian autonomy upon the Greek Communist
Party, the latter split, losing domestic support.[12]
Five general propositions emerge from this survey of the history of international relations
in the Balkan/Asia Minor region. They follow.
Proposition 1. A stable multipolar
system (Concert of Europe, Inter-
[ page 187 ]
war League System) mitigates conflict between the Russian and Turkish states more effectively than a
bipolar (European Balance, Nuclear Superpower System) or unipolar (Bismarckian) system.
Proposition 2. Russian/Soviet rulers
consider Greek independence and autonomy secondary to their own preoccupations with Turkey and the
Balkans.
Proposition 3. Russian strength and
Turkish weakness produce a latent antagonism between the two states that fuels specific conflicts.
Proposition 4. Overt
Russo–Turkish conflict is most likely when both countries are strong vis-à-vis the international
system and one another.
Proposition 5. Cooperation between the
Russian and Turkish states increases when both are weak vis-à-vis the international system.
The two international systems identified since the end of World War II provide
the framework for examining the postwar period. These were the Nuclear Superpower System
(1949–1979, declined after 1974)[13] and Multipolar
Interdependence (1979 to the present). By way of introduction to the Nuclear Superpower System,
however, it is necessary first to give special treatment to the years from 1936 to 1948. These
years transformed the Soviet Union from a diffident semi-outsider in one international system,
into a constitutive pillar of the successor system. More than that, they were the crucible out of
which the postwar situation in the Balkan/Asia Minor region emerged. Since the imprint of these
years upon international politics in the region is still evident, it would be negligent not to
signal their salient features.
Soviet relations with Greece had been bad since before the war, as Stalin's instigation of
the Greek Communists to civil unrest facilitated General Metaxas's coup in 1936. Tito, having designs on
Macedonia, instigated a Greek Communist insurgency immediately after the
[ page 188 ]
conclusion of the Second World War. Moscow did nothing to discourage Yugoslav or Bulgarian
military pressure on Greek Macedonia, which remained the key problem between Greece and the Soviet bloc.
Throughout the late 1940s, the Soviet bloc maintained that external (i.e.,
British) interference in the Greek domestic affairs endangered international security in the
region. In early 1946 the Soviet Union presented to the United Nations a complaint against the
British military presence in Greece. Debates at the UN and the organization's actions
"exerted serious pressure on the Soviet Union and the satellite countries." They
effectively "delegitimiz[ed] the actions and statements of the Soviet Union, its satellites,
and the guerrillas in Greece" and "expos[ed] their actions vis-à-vis Greece and
the guerrillas."[14] In view of Stalin's concession of
Western influence in Greece under the famous "percentages agreement" with Churchill,
the question remains why the Stalin turned to the UN in this instance. In fact, he had no other
diplomatic instrumentalities at his disposal. The various national Balkan communist parties
(including the Greeks) did not heed his word, and he had no direct means for applying military
pressure. Stalin "could not afford to miss any opportunity for advantageous propaganda"
even though he preferred a policy of "open diplomatic action in the Balkans rather than
subversion and revolution" at the time.[15]
The Western powers' failure to make good on guarantees to Turkey in the early
and mid-1930s led to the convocation of a new conference on the Straits.[16] At this conference, from which emerged the regime of the Montreux
Convention (1936), the Soviets were able to assure passage for warships of Black Sea powers and
to limit the movement of ships of other powers.[17] The
Montreux Convention was the first step by Great Britain and France "to encourage Turkey
either to involve its war fleet in war against Germany or to maintain strict neutrality in the
event of conflict between the Western Allies and Germany."[18] These steps were ultimately successful.
In mid-1939 Stalin proposed to Great Britain and France a military assistance pact
guaranteeing the integrity of all states from the Baltic to the Black Sea. When Britain and France declined,
Stalin proposed to Turkey that it share sovereignty of
[ page 189 ]
the Straits jointly with the USSR. When Turkey responded by signing a military alliance with
Great Britain and France (October 1939), Stalin proposed joint Soviet–German sovereignty of the Straits to
Hitler. In 1940 his foreign minister Molotov publicly implicated Turkey in Allied designs on the Baku
oilfields.
Germany's pressure on Turkey to join in a military alliance was not
successful, but Turkey did sign a Treaty of Friendship which insured to Germany Turkish
neutrality. This stance of neutrality, to which the Turks clung almost throughout the war, was
not equivalent to passivity. As a senior Soviet historian has correctly pointed out, it was not
always even equivalent to neutrality.[19] Turkey remained
formally neutral but sought to enhance its regional influence by bargaining with various
belligerents. If in the end it gained nothing, this was because "every one of its demands
came into conflict with the interests or the diplomatic tactics of the warring powers."[20]
In late 1945 Stalin proposed to Turkey the joint Soviet–Turkish
administration of the Straits, plus a general prohibition on passage by ships of states not
bordering on the Black Sea. Turkey replied that these provisions would infringe its own
independence and security. (Rubinstein has aptly characterized this move as "Stalin's grab
for the Straits."[21]) Great Britain and the United
States strongly supported Turkey's position.[22] Stalin's
additional claims to the Turkish districts of Ardahan and Kars, which the Russian Empire had
ruled from 1878 to 1917, did little to mollify the Western powers. The Truman Doctrine,
proclaimed in 1947, only reinforced Turkey's resolve in standing up to the Soviets.
Turkish–Soviet relations did not improve until after Stalin's death in 1953, when the
Soviet government began trying to win over the Turkish government instead of undermining it.[23]
By the time Stalin died in 1953, he had succeeded in alienating both Greece and Turkey.
Greece and Turkey each joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952. In 1954 they signed with
Yugoslavia the Balkan Pact, which Khrushchev's visit to Belgrad subsequently obviated although it remains in
force. Other events in the region deserve little note here until the late 1950s, when the Soviets deployed eight
submarines to Valona, Albania.
The apparent purpose of the Soviet deployment to Albania was to facilitate sealing the
Turkish Straits, through attack upon seaborne NATO reinforcements, in time of war. This deployment ended in 1961
when Albania became implicated in the Sino–Soviet dispute.
[ page 190 ]
Increasing Soviet naval strength in the eastern Mediterranean remained the
most striking feature of relations in the region during the 1960s and early 1970s. In the early
1960s the USSR sought to enlarge its maritime defense perimeter, and a Mediterranean deployment
fit into this pattern. When President Kennedy's withdrew the Jupiter missiles from Turkey (in the
wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis) and President Johnson criticized Turkey's 1964 actions
concerning Cyprus, the Soviets took advantage of the strain to deploy a cruiser and two
destroyers through the Straits. (The Montreux Convention, still in force, permits transit by
capital ships of Black Sea powers escorted by no more than two destroyers.) By 1966 the Soviets
had built up their Mediterranean force an average daily strength of fifteen ships which were
making port calls from Egypt to Gibraltar.[24]
Events in the Middle East impelled further build-ups of Soviet naval strength
in the eastern Mediterranean. During the Six-Day War (June 1967) the Soviets, seeking to counter
the U.S. Sixth Fleet, increased their force to seventy ships in a show of support for the Arab
states. Soviet naval aircraft began operating in the region on a regular basis. The USSR
continued to increase its forces thereafter, augmenting them substantially at the height of the
Jordanian crisis (September–October 1970). During the Yom Kippur War (October 1973) this
force rose from 52 to 95 ships, including over a dozen destroyers and nearly two dozen
submarines,[25] all protecting the sealift of Soviet arms
to Egypt and Syria. However, the political benefits obtained by a similar show of force in 1967
did not repeat themselves. In 1976 President Sadat, having expelled Soviet advisors and air units
from Egypt, closed Egyptian ports to the Soviet navy. Soviet naval forces in the Mediterranean
have never regained the strength they enjoyed in the early 1970s.[26]
Stalin had alienated Greece through his policy in the Balkans. It was not until the military
junta of 1967–1974 that any Greek regime even considered a diplomatic rapprochement with any
communist government at all. The Greek colonels worked first through Albania, Romania, and China, before
establishing contact with the Soviet Union. The substance of these relations, however, did not amount to much at
the time.
Turkey began acting more independent of American policy from
[ page 191 ]
the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, and reasserted its traditional regional interests.
Improvement in relations with Moscow was part of this approach. At the same time Ankara maintained its fidelity
to NATO and continued its military and economic cooperation with the United States. In 1965 USSR President
Podgornyi and Foreign Minister Gromyko both visited Ankara, followed in 1966 by Prime Minister Kosygin. In 1967
Turkish Prime Minister Demirel accepted a Soviet invitation to visit Moscow. There he signed an economic
cooperation agreement under which Turkey developed huge public-sector projects with Soviet industrial and
financial assistance. Trade soared and even the Turkish military coup in 1971 did not disrupt relations.[27]
Let us examine what light the experience of the years 1936–1974 sheds on the
"lessons of pre-Montreux history" drawn earlier.
Proposition 1 cannot be evaluated. No
stable multipolar system existed during the years 1936–1974. Turkish–Soviet relations were
equally conflictual during the breakdown of the (multipolar) Interwar League System and the rise of the
(bipolar) Nuclear Superpower System.
Proposition 2 is borne out. Soviet
concern with Greece derived from how Greek policy could possibly benefit Soviet goals in the region and
not from any genuine concern for Greek affairs. Like the rulers of the Empire of All the Russias, Soviet leaders
from 1936 to 1974 considered Greek autonomy and independence quite secondary to their own preoccupations in the
region.
Proposition 3 is borne out. When the
Soviet Union was strong and Turkey was weak, then antagonism tended to result. The Soviets abandoned their
antagonism toward Turkey during World War II because the very survival of the USSR was at stake. However, this
antagonism reappeared after 1945 with a focus on the Turkish Straits. The Soviet Union was then strong
vis-à-vis the international system and Turkey was weak, but Turkey had the support of the major Western
powers. Since the two countries had no common enemy, their antagonism worsened. After the mid-1960s Turkey
increasingly asserted its autonomous regional interests and augmented its regional prestige. The Soviets
accommodated this development, and the level of Turkish–Soviet antagonism diminished.
Proposition 4 is contradicted. Overt
conflict was no longer automatic when both the Soviet Union and Turkey were strong states. Toward the end
of the period 1936–1974, Turkey's strength as a regional power began to rise. However, Turkey was hardly
as strong as the Soviet Union vis-à-vis the international system. Although the United States supported
Turkey against the Soviet Union, there was no overt Turkish–Soviet conflict. Specific features of the
Nuclear Superpower System account for the contradiction of this proposition. Those features are the
promotion of the Soviet Union to the rank of great power and the reduction of Turkey to the rank of regional
power.
[ page 192 ]
Proposition 5 is contradicted. When both
the Turkish and Russian states were weak, mutual antagonism was absent. From 1920 to 1936, Turkey and the
USSR were weak states in a multipolar international environment and they enjoyed a high degree of cooperation.
Between 1936 and 1948, that international environment was disintegrating and its collapse affected the
Balkan/Asia Minor region. Consequently, Turkish–Soviet cooperation was negligible even though both
countries were weak vis-à-vis the international system. Under the Nuclear Superpower System, bilateral
Turkish–Soviet cooperation was nil until the late 1960s. As with the fourth proposition, specific
features of the Nuclear Superpower System account for the contradiction of this proposition. In this
instance, those features are the system's bipolarity and the peripheralization of the Balkan/Asia Minor region,
within the international hierarchy, by the emerging Third World and the appearance of the latter's on the
international agenda.
The second and third propositions illustrate that certain constants transcend historical
states and international systems in the region. The fourth and fifth propositions illustrate that changes in the
international environment can account for some changes in state behavior in the region. It will therefore be
instructive to examine all five propositions also in relation to the period since 1974, which has seen
fundamental shifts in the organization of the international system. Following that second round of verification,
it will be possible to project the future course of Greek and Turkish relations with the Soviet Union.
[ page 193 ]
The year 1974 marked the beginning of the decline of the international system
we have called the Nuclear Superpower System.[28] Also in
1974 the Greek contingent of the Cypriot National Guard staged a coup ousting President Makarios.
This action led Turkish troops to occupy the northern third of Cyprus and precipitated the fall
of the Greek junta. The events surrounding Cyprus in 1974 did not just affect both Greek and
Turkish foreign policy. They also transformed Moscow's approach to the region.[29]
The Soviet government accepted the original Turkish justification for landing its troops,
viz., that no peaceful settlement of the conflict on Cyprus was possible. In Moscow, international-affairs
specialists were divided in their evaluation of events. One school of analysis saw the coup against Makarios as
a NATO plot to overthrow a nonaligned government and transform the island into an "unsinkable aircraft
carrier." Another school of analysis in Moscow, emphasizing Greek–Turkish confrontation rather than
East–West conflict, saw the conflict's regional aspect as primary. When it became evident that American,
British, and NATO policies were not the same, the second school of analysis gained the upper hand in Moscow.
Greece's withdrawal from NATO's military command further undermined the school of analysis in Moscow which saw
events on Cyprus as a straightforward NATO plot.
In August, the second Turkish landing on Cyprus made partition of the island likely. Since
this development made the restoration of Makarios's independent nonaligned government more difficult, it was not
in Moscow's interest. However, Moscow's desire for a role in whatever settlement emerged was greater than its
desire for Makarios's restoration. The USSR decided to improve ties with Turkey and reinvigorated its economic
aid program to Ankara. Retreating from overt advocacy of Makarios's cause, the Soviets reoriented their policy
regarding Cyprus. They turned to the United Nations, sending an observer to the intercommunal talks in Geneva
that the UN Security Council had authorized. The Soviets proposed that,
[ page 194 ]
to verify the ceasefire, the Council should send to Cyprus a mission comprising
representatives of the USSR and two non-aligned countries. Although this suggestion was quickly forgotten, the
salient development was the Soviet turn toward the United Nations as the diplomatic instrumentality of choice.
The reason for this was the same as for Stalin's approach to the UN over the Greek question immediately after
World War II. The Soviets had no other significant means through which to influence either the military or the
diplomatic outcome of the situation.
The reorientation of Greek foreign policy after the 1974 Cyprus conflict
concentrated at first on the Balkans. Prime Minister Karamanlis of the New Democracy government
visited Romania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria in 1975, and he played host to an inter-Balkan meeting
in early 1978. Greece and the Soviet Union signed a series of agreements on economic and
technical cooperation during these years, and trade increased significantly. However, it took
four years for the two countries' foreign ministers to meet, and the only result of the meeting
was another accord on cultural and technical cooperation. NATO circles began to worry when the
merchant-marine aspect of that accord led a Greek company to offer shipping repair services to
the Soviets. They were afraid this might entail servicing support vessels of the Soviet
Mediterranean squadron.[30] Greece's relations with the
USSR deteriorated following the invasion of Afghanistan. By then, however, contracts were in
place for the purchase Soviet oil and electricity, and for Soviet aid in building two power
plants.[31] Greece rejoined the NATO military command in
late 1980.
Turkey, like Greece, turned after 1974 toward expanding its Balkan
relations.[32] It had diplomatic exchanges with all the
Warsaw Pact members in the Balkan region, plus Yugoslavia and Albania. Turkish–Bulgarian
relations in particular improved remarkably.[33]
Turkish–Soviet economic cooperation focused on energy-production projects and raw-materials
extraction and processing, and relations expanded hugely.[34] When Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin visited Ankara in 1978, he signed an
agreement on Principles of Good-Neighborly and Friendly Cooperation with Turkish Prime Minister
Ecevit. However, the
[ page 195 ]
most significant result of the meeting was the agreement on economic
cooperation.[35] A 1979 protocol to the 1978 agreement
foresaw nearly four billion dollars' worth of projects in these fields.
The Soviets have little to show politically for the vast increase in economic
ties with Turkey. Ankara accepted a Soviet invitation to observe military maneuvers in the
Caucasus in the mid− and late 1970s, it permitted the aircraft carrier Kiev
through the Straits,[36] and it refused Washington's
request to use Turkish territory to replace monitoring stations lost after the revolution in
Iran. Yet a strengthening of Atlanticism was, in the words of a senior Soviet scholar, "the
chief trait characterizing Turkey's foreign policy" in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[37] The principal result of closer Turkish economic ties with
the socialist countries of Eastern Europe was the creation of an atmosphere more sympathetic to
all-Balkan cooperation.[38]
Andreas Papandreou, after his election in 1981 at the head of a PASOK
government in Athens, reversed the decision against offering the USSR shipping repair services.
He signed a declaration with the Romanian leader Ceaucescu calling for a Nuclear-Free Zone in the
Balkans. Greece was the only EEC member not to impose sanctions on Poland in the early 1980s
after the introduction of martial law there. It was the only NATO member not to approve
deployment of Pershing II and Cruise missiles in Europe. As time went on, however, it became
clear to all observers, including the Soviets, that fundamental change Greece's international
relations was minimal. The Diplomatic Academy in Moscow (a research and training institute under
the USSR Foreign Ministry) accepted Le Monde 's conclusion that "the chief aim of
Athens's new diplomatic line is `to secure for Greece a significant international rank [by] ...
playing an original role in relations between East and West.'"[39] Papandreou's signature of a new Defense Cooperation Agreement with the
U.S. in late 1983 underlined the limits of his deviation from longstanding Greek foreign
policy.
Papandreou hosted a conference on Balkan cooperation in early 1984, but Greek relations with
its Balkan neighbors have lost their dynamism since 1985. A visit to Moscow in early 1985 yielded little more
than a few economic agreements, and Greek relations with the
[ page 196 ]
USSR have shown little progress since then. Greek–Soviet relations
soured in particular following the exposure by a Soviet defector of Moscow's operations in
Athens, including disinformation activities and subversion of local peace movements and mass
media. The level of Greek–Soviet trade has actually declined in recent years. The Greek
trade deficit with the USSR has increased, partly because the Soviets refuse to spend their
foreign trade earnings on Greek goods. Industrial cooperation projects are at a standstill. A
politically sensitive joint project to construct an alumina plant near Delphi is dormant.[40] Papandreou maintained his independent line by condemning
the Strategic Defense Initiative and by continuing to tout a Balkan Nuclear-Free Zone. However,
Greece's concern with internal problems over the last few years has not permitted sustained
attention to either economic or political relations with the USSR.
Even before the Turkish military took power in September 1980, Suleiman Demirel's Justice
Party government signed a new Defense Cooperation Agreement with Washington. In 1982 General Evren visited
Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia; Moscow cordially received his foreign minister later that year. By the time
Soviet Prime Minister Tikhonov visited Ankara in late 1984, Turgut Ozal had formed a civilian government. The
principal results of this visit were yet another important series of long-term accords on trade, economic,
scientific, and cultural cooperation. Yet better political relations between the two countries did not follow
the improvement in economic ties. Bilateral disputes soured Turkish–Soviet relations, and these did not
improve when Prime Minister Ozal was snubbed during his visit to Moscow in mid-1986. Nor was a trade accord
signed during that visit.
Turkey's decision to participate in the Strategic Defense Initiative triggered
a rash of complaints in the Soviet press about Turkish conventional military cooperation with the
United States. In early 1986 General Secretary Gorbachev restated Soviet support for UN efforts
to settle the Cyprus conflict, including an international conference leading to the island's
demilitarization. Soviet policy toward the Cyprus conflict has since favored Greece. In mid-1988
Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze met with the newly elected President Vassiliou of Cyprus and
emphasized Soviet support for the island's "independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial
integrity." Subsequent Soviet statements have stressed this theme and continued to advocate
the United Nations as a means for settling the Cyprus conflict.[41]
[ page 197 ]
From the recent historical record we arrive at the following evaluations of the propositions
generated earlier.
Proposition 1 holds true with one amendment. The
absence of Turkish–Soviet warfare under Multipolar Interdependence appears to verify this proposition, but
neither was there any conflict under the Nuclear Superpower System. This proposition could not be evaluated by
the record of the years 1936–1974, because no stable multipolar system then existed. However, the long
perspective from 1713 to the present, including the Concert of Europe and the Interwar League System, permits
the emergence of:
Corollary 1. The intensity of conflicts between the Russian and
Turkish states is mitigated not by multipolar systems per se but by a secular trend toward
international cooperation that multipolar systems permit more clearly to manifest.
Proposition 2 remains valid. Soviet relations with Greece are
governed by the utility of Greek policy for Soviet goals. However, the first four systems also generate,
and events during the last two international systems confirm:
Corollary 2. The salience of Greece to Russian/Soviet policy
increases when the Russian state is a maritime and commercial player in the eastern Mediterranean.
Proposition 3 must be modified. It is no longer Soviet strength
and Turkish weakness that fuel conflicts between the two countries. The recent worsening of
Turkish–Soviet relations is due to Soviet intolerance of Turkey's increased regional strength and
autonomy. (Nor are Turkey's regional strength and autonomy likely to decrease in the future.) Moscow
accommodated Turkey's rising regional prestige in the region from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s but has become
more negative toward it since the late 1970s. Soviet relations with Turkey have deteriorated as a result. These
developments, taken together with the course of events from 1713 to 1936, generate two further insights:
Corollary 3(a). The peripheralization of the Balkan/Asia Minor
[ page 198 ]
region in world politics, resulting from the rise of the Third World, has permitted the
rebirth of Turkey as a regional power.
Corollary 3(b). Multipolar systems have historically enhanced
the salience of Turkey's regional role.
Proposition 4 is valid if revised. It must take the changed
international system into account. In the late 1930s the Soviet Union and Turkey had a common enemy, and
this proposition was not valid. The elevation of the Soviet Union to the rank of great power accounts for the
proposition's lack of validity from 1949 to 1974. The system of Multipolar Interdependence has important
similarities with the two systems that originally generated this proposition, the Concert of Europe and Interwar
League Systems. Under present conditions, including the peripheralization of the Balkan/Asia Minor region in
world politics, this proposition should be restated as:
Corollary 4. Overt conflict between the Soviet Union and Turkey
is most likely when both are strong vis-à-vis the Balkan/Asia Minor regional system and one
another.
Proposition 5 does not apply. In the period since 1974, neither
the Soviet Union nor Turkey has been a weak state, either vis-à-vis the international system or
vis-à-vis the regional system.
In the 1970s an important justification for East–West détente in
Soviet eyes was the favor to be gained in Western political circles that were tied to economic
circles profiting from trade with the USSR.[42] Yet the
increase in Soviet trade with Turkey and Greece had this effect on neither of these two
countries. Greek and Turkish relations with Eastern Europe improved noticeably during the
mid− and late 1970s. However, this development was an integral part of the two countries'
autonomous foreign policy reorientations and had no direct connection with their respective
relations with the Soviet Union. Although Greece's foreign policy reorientation was not
systematized
[ page 199 ]
as doctrine until the 1970s, its origins can be traced to the late 1960. Turkey's
reorientation had begun as far back as the mid-1960s. Soviet détente policy not the motive force in
either instance. The Soviet Union may be a Balkan power but it is not a Balkan state; the Balkan states include
Yugoslavia and Albania, which are not members of the Soviet bloc. For both Greece and Turkey, Eastern Europe
is first and foremost southeastern Europe, i.e., the Balkans. Because of the Balkan connection, Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union are linked together less organically in both Greek and Turkish foreign policy than
in the foreign policies of other NATO members.
The division of labor in the USSR Academy of Sciences reflects the multifaceted nature of the
Balkan/Asia Minor region. Turkey falls within the purview of the Institute of Eastern Studies, while the
Institute of the USA and Canada has responsibility for studying Greece's relations with the NATO countries. In
the past Greek affairs have been the province of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. The
new Institute of European Studies probably now assumes this responsibility. The Russian state has always viewed
Turkey as a state more implicated in "Eastern" than in European questions. Turkey's Muslim population
is another reason the Soviets consider it principally an Eastern rather than a European country. The Soviet
emphasis on a "common European house" reinforces the separation of Greek and Turkey in Soviet studies
of world politics; Greece and Turkey are the responsibility of different departments of the USSR Foreign
Ministry. It remains to be seen how the Soviet Union's approach to Turkey will be affected by the latter's bid
to join the EEC and its eventual success or failure.
Despite improved economic relations between the Soviet Union and Turkey, the
Cyprus conflict has troubled political relations between the two countries.[43] In their foreign propaganda, the Soviets still criticize
NATO's supposed role in the island's problems. Moreover, they have motivated a change in the
tactics of the Cypriot Workers' Progressive Party (AKEL), one of the largest political parties on
the island. Since the retirement in 1988 of Ezekias Papaioannou, its 80-year-old general
secretary who had held the post since 1949, AKEL has supported President Vassiliou, a businessman
with little political experience. His government proposes a
[ page 200 ]
"federal" solution to the Cyprus problem as against the
"confederal" solution, with only nominal central power, advocated by Rauf Denktash, the
leader of the Turkish Cypriots.[44] (Moscow advocated a
federal solution after the 1964 troubles but dropped this proposal when Greece expressed its
irritation.)
If Greece and Turkey constitute the "intersection" of the Balkan subregion of
Europe with the southwest Asian subregion of the Middle East, then Cyprus and the other bilateral disputes lie
at the "intersection" of Greece and Turkey. The USSR's approach to the Cyprus problem expresses the
principal diplomatic dilemma that it faces in the region. The international framework of treaties guaranteeing
Cypriot independence since 1960 excludes the USSR. The signatories—Greece, Turkey, and Great Britain—are all
NATO members. The island hosts various Western radio facilities and extraterritorial British bases. Since the
Balkan/Asia Minor region is peripheral to both the European and Middle Eastern subsystems of the international
system, the substantial Soviet influence in those two subsystems is only marginally useful in the region
itself.
The Soviet Union does not dispose of exceptional diplomatic resources in either southeast
Europe or southwest Asia. Nor have bilateral ties with either Greece or Turkey brought the Soviet Union any
special advantage in either subsystem. Having few instrumentalities at its disposal, the Soviet Union turns
periodically to the United Nations. This was the reason that Stalin raised the Greek question before the United
Nations after World War II. It was for this same reason too that the USSR had recourse to the Security Council
following the 1974 Cyprus conflict.[45]
Soviet policy toward Greece in the years immediately after World War II was
"simply the incoherent residuum" of Soviet security policy toward the major powers
(Britain, France, Germany, the USA), minor powers in Eastern Europe (Poland, Rumania, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia), and Greece's neighbors involved in Balkan conflicts (Albania, Yugoslavia,
Bulgaria). "[P]atriotic Greeks could never appreciate [this fact], since they held it to be
axiomatic that Greece was central to the foreign policy of every major power."[46] Papandreou's foreign policy perhaps reflected such a
conviction. His policy could be called neo-Gaullist, except that
[ page 201 ]
Greece, unlike France, is not a former great power and does not have nuclear weapons. There
was, therefore, no Greek analogue to the General's central doctrine of tous azimuts. Indeed, Papandreou
declared in the mid-1980s that the principal threat to Greece came from the East (i.e., from Turkey rather than
from the Soviet Union).
The Turkish Straits are too easily bottlenecked and therefore of little offensive use to the
Soviets during military hostilities. It would be logistic folly for the Soviets to try to pass ships through
them in time of war, but they have achieved de facto unhindered peacetime passage even for vessels
prohibited by the Montreux Convention. Cyprus, not the Straits, is the principal point of antagonism between,
and indicator of the state relations between, Russia and Turkey today. Increasing Soviet estrangement from
Turkey yields some disquiet in Moscow. Believing it still has insufficient means to further its interests in the
Balkan/Asia Minor region, the USSR will continue to use multilateral initiatives such as a Balkan Nuclear-Free
Zone and international instrumentalities such as the UN and the Non-Aligned Movement (of which latter, Cyprus is
an increasingly prominent member) to heighten its influence in the region.[47]
One need not subscribe to Mackinder's famous theory about the Eurasian "Heartland"
and its "Rimlands" (including Asia Minor) to see from a map, that the territory occupied by the
Turkish nation should be more important to any Russian state than that occupied by the Greek nation. But this
insight needs to be modified in the light of the corollaries generated from the "lessons of pre-Montreux
history" by the post-1974 era. In particular, Corollaries 3(a) and 3(b) together produce the inference that
Turkey's role in the region will continue to rise in the future. However, Corollaries 1, 2, and 4 taken together
yield the inferences (i) that Turkish–Soviet differences will remain prominent, (ii) that these
will be managed but not fundamentally resolved, and (iii) that Soviet policy in the region will increase
its attention to Greece.
[Note 1]. For a discussion of this region's significance pertaining to
the Central European theater, see Michael MccGwire, Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1987), pp. 141–46.
[ page 202 ]
[Note 2]. For details, see Nicholas V. Gianaris, Greece and Turkey:
Economic and Geopolitical Perspectives (New York: Praeger, 1988), p. 179.
[Note 3]. Frederick L. Schuman, International Politics: The Western
State System in Transition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1941), p. 59.
[Note 4]. World wars or other conflicts involving the major states of the
system (Napoleonic Wars, wars of German unification, World War I, World War II) separate the systems and define
their terminus dates. An exception is the transition from the Nuclear Superpower System to Multipolar
Interdependence. For this, the year 1979 was taken as terminus because it marks the first round of the
international debt crisis. This crisis confirmed not only the significance of the Third World on the global (as
opposed to regional) agenda, but also that of global finance. At one jump it controverted the two exclusive
conceptual bases of the Nuclear Superpower System, under which bipolar strategic issues monopolized that agenda.
Compare L. Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).
[Note 5]. For felicity of expression, "the Russian state" will
be used as a generic term for the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union together, and "the Turkish
state" for the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic together. When the reference is to one of these
historical states in particular, then its proper name is used.
[Note 6]. The noun "lessons" takes on special significance in
recent work in international-relations theory about learning and behavior. The limits of this chapter do not
allow integration of a theoretically based "learning" perspective. Therefore, "lessons" in
this chapter refer to analytical inferences from the historical record generally, rather than to any principles
learned by any particular countries or leaders.
[Note 7]. No clearly defined successor system to the Concert of Europe
emerged before Prussian primacy consolidated the German state. The Crimean War is therefore treated as the
beginning of the decline of the Concert of Europe.
[Note 8]. The British conceived the 1826 protocol which established a
tributary vassal Greek state to be the first step in a protracted series of arrangements. However, the Russians,
regarding it as a diplomatic victory, promptly made the text public. See Douglas Dakin, The Greek Struggle
for Independence, 1821–1833 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973), pp.
173–81. Quotation from B. Kondis, "Aspects of Anglo–Russian Rivalry during the Greek Revolution
(1825–1829)," in Les relations gréco-russes pendant la domination turque et la guerre
d'indépendance grecque (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1983), p. 118.
[Note 9]. Serbe A. Gyalistras, Hellenism and Its Balkan Neighbors
during Recent Years (Athens: Hestia, 1945).
[Note 10]. G. Astakhov, Ot sultanata k demokraticheskoi Turtsii:
Ocherki iz istorii kemalizma [From the Sultanate to Democratic Turkey: Sketches from the History of
Kemalism] (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1926), is an example of this tendency in the Soviet historiography, which also
animated Soviet analyses of regional affairs at the time. For the latter, see B. Zherve,
[ page 203 ]
A. Petrov, and E. Shvede, Sredizemnoe mor′e: Politiko-strategicheskii ocherk [The
Mediterranean Sea: A Political-Strategic Essay] (Moscow: Voennyi Vestnik, 1927).
[Note 11]. Still the best concise narrative, hitting all the salient
points, is Max Beloff, The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia 1929–1941, vol. 2,
1936–1941 (London: Oxford University Press, 1949), pp. 39–48. For the early years, see
Roderic H. Davison, "Turkish Diplomacy from Mudros to Lausanne," in Gordon A. Craig and Felix A.
Gilbert (eds.), The Diplomats (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp.
172–209.
[Note 12]. Elizabeth Barker, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power
Politics (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1950).
[Note 13]. An incipient bipolar system followed World War II, but it
was not until 1948 that Czechoslovakia fell under communist control. One cannot begin to speak of a nuclear
superpower system until after 1949, the year the USSR exploded an atomic device. The question of delivery
capability then remains, but the belief systems of mass publics, concerning the fact of a Manichean bipolarity,
are by then fixed.
[Note 14]. Van Coufoudakis, "The United States, the United
Nations, and the Greek Question, 1946–1952," in John O. Iatrides (ed.), Greece in the 1940s: A
Nation in Crisis (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1981), pp. 278–96; quotation at p.
290.
[Note 15]. C.M. Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece,
1941–1949 (Brooklyn Heights, N.Y.: Beekman/Esanu, 1976), pp. 159–83; quotation at p. 160.
[Note 16]. Anthony R. Deluca, Great Power Rivalry at the Turkish
Straits: The Montreux Conference and Convention of 1936 (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1981),
provides a detailed and useful diplomatic history.
[Note 17]. This provision was similar to that of the Treaty of Unkiar
Skelessi (1833), reversed by the subsequent Straits Protocol (1841). "When forced to choose, [Russia] has
in the past placed the exclusion of noncontiguous powers over her own right of naval transit." Michael
MccGwire, "The Mediterranean and Soviet Naval Interests," in Michael MccGwire (ed.), Soviet Naval
Developments: Capability and Context (New York: Praeger, 1973), pp. 348–49.
[Note 18]. Christos L. Rozakis and Petros N. Stagos, The Turkish
Straits (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), pp. 41–42; see pp. 101–26 for an excellent
explication of the Convention's provisions.
[Note 19]. P.P. Moiseev, "CCCP i Turtsiia v gody vtoroi mirovoi
voiny (1939–1945)" [The USSR and Turkey during the Second World War (1939–1945)], in SSSR
i Turtsiia, 1917–1979 [The USSR and Turkey, 1917–1979], edited by E.M. Zhukov et al.
(Moscow: Nauka, Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1981), pp. 184–86. Along the same lines, see
Zehra Önder, Die türkische Aussenpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munich: R. Oldenbourg,
1977); and Selim Deringil, Turkish Foreign Policy during the Second World War: An "Active"
Neutrality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
[Note 20]. Rozakis and Stagos, The Turkish Straits, p. 46. On
the Turkish application of the Montreux Convention during World War II, see the somewhat legalistic but still
informative monograph of Ernst Tennstedt,
[ page 204 ]
Die türkischen Meerengen unter der Konvention von Montreux im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt:
Alfred Metzner, 1981), esp. pp. 11–22, 33–40, 49–73.
[Note 21]. Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Soviet Policy toward Turkey, Iran,
and Afghanistan: The Dynamics of Influence (New York: Praeger, 1972), pp. 9–17.
[Note 22]. The full diplomatic correspondence, including the frequently
omitted British and American notes, is in Ferenc A. Váli, The Turkish Straits and NATO
(Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1972), pp. 246–97.
[Note 23]. S. Belinkov and I. Vasil′ev, O turetskom
"neitralitete" vo vremia Vtoroi mirovoi voiny [On Turkish "Neutrality" during the
Second World War] (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1952) is a typical anti-Turkish polemic of the late Stalin years. Petr
P. Moiseev and Iuri N. Rozal′ev, K istorii sovetsko-turetskikh otnoshenii [Toward the History of
Soviet–Turkish Relations] (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1958) reflects the more amicable tendency that
reappeared under Khrushchev.
[Note 24]. Keith Allen, "The Black Sea Fleet and Mediterranean
Naval Operations," in Bruce W. Watson and Susan M. Watson (eds.), The Soviet Navy: Strengths and
Liabilities (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1986), p. 217; MccGwire, "The Mediterranean and Soviet Naval
Interests," pp. 352–53; Bruce W. Watson, Red Navy at Sea: Soviet Naval Operations on the High
Seas, 1956–1980 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1982), pp. 80–81, 87.
[Note 25]. The USSR apparently continues to observe a stipulation of
the Montreux Convention that submarines of Black Sea powers must transit the Straits in daytime on the surface.
Under the Convention, submarines of non-Black Sea powers may not transit the Straits.
[Note 26]. Allen, "The Black Sea Fleet and Mediterranean Naval
Operations," pp. 219–21; MccGwire, "The Mediterranean and Soviet Naval Interests," pp.
346–47. For a discussion of longstanding logistic problems and Soviet attempts to meet them, see Gordon
McCormick, "Soviet Strategic Aims and Capabilities in the Mediterranean: Part II," Adelphi
Papers 229 (Spring 1988), pp. 32–48.
[Note 27]. Rubinstein, Soviet Policy toward Turkey, Iran, and
Afghanistan, pp. 26–27, 35–36.
[Note 28]. Events in the years 1973–1975 made the incipient
decline of the bipolar Nuclear Superpower System obvious: the emergence of the EEC as an independent actor in
world politics, the embargo by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the conclusion of the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Accords). It is convenient to mark beginning of the
decline with 1974, the year the United Nations approved the Declaration on the Economic Rights and Duties of
States. This document confirmed the introduction of normative debate over to the distribution of the world
economic product onto the agenda of international relations.
[Note 29]. The next two paragraphs draw heavily on Robert M. Cutler,
"Domestic and Foreign Influences on Policy Making: The
Soviet Union in the 1974 Cyprus Conflict," Soviet Studies 37, no. 1 (January 1985), pp.
60–89.
[Note 30]. They seem to have been correct. Watson, Red Navy at
Sea, p. 124.
[Note 31]. For an interesting discussion of cooperation in the energy
sector, see Judith Gurney, "Energy Needs in the Balkans: A Source of Conflict or
[ page 205 ]
Co-operation?", The World Today 34, no. 2 (February 1978), pp. 44–51.
[Note 32]. For an authoritative statement, see Bülent Ecevit,
"Turkey's Security Policies," Survival 20, no. 5 (September/October 1978), pp.
203–08.
[Note 33]. However, for antecedents in the early 1970s, see Kemal H.
Karpat, "Turkish–Soviet Relations," in Kemal H. Karpat (ed.), Turkey's Foreign Policy in
Transition, 1950–1974 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975), pp. 105–07.
[Note 34]. Apparently significant was the monograph by E.I. Ukrazova,
Turtsiia: Problemy finansirovaniia ekonomicheskogo razvitiia [Turkey: Problems of Financing Economic
Development] (Moscow: Nauka, 1974). Compare Anne O. Krueger, Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development:
Turkey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974).
[Note 35]. Text in Basil Dmytryshyn and Frederick Cox (trans. and
eds.), The Soviet Union and the Middle East: A Documentary Record of Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey,
1917–1985 (Princeton, N.J.: Kingston Press, 1987), pp. 671–78.
[Note 36]. This probably violated the Montreux Convention, to which the
appended definitions exclude carriers from the category of "capital ships" allowed to transit. Allen,
"The Black Sea Fleet and Mediterranean Naval Operations," p. 218; see also Rozakis and Stagos, The
Turkish Straits, pp. 132–33, who note that the Kiev violated the Convention's provision on
allowable tonnage.
[Note 37]. B.M. Potskhveriia, Vneshniaia politika Turtsii v
60-kh – nachale 80-kh godov XX v. [Turkey's Foreign Policy from the 1960s to the Early 1980s]
(Moscow: Nauka, Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1986), p. 170.
[Note 38]. A.K. Sverchevskaia, "K razvitiiu dvukhstoronnikh
otnoshenii Turtsii s evropeiskimi sotsialisticheskimi stranami" [Toward the Development of Turkey's
Bilateral Relations with European Socialist Countries], in Politika i ekonomika sovremennoi Turtsii
[Politics and Economics of Contemporary Turkey], edited by V.I. Danilov, P.P. Moiseev, and A.M. Shamsutdinov
(Moscow: Nauka, Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoi literatury, 1977), pp. 100–08.
[Note 39]. L.S. Voronkov, "Vneshniaia politika malykh
zapadnoevropeiskikh stran i aktual′nye problemy mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii" [The Foreign Policy of
the Small West European Countries and Current Problems of International Relations], in Vneshniaia politika
kapitalisticheskikh stran [The Foreign Policy of Capitalist Countries], edited by S.L. Tikhvinskii et
al. (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1983), p. 242, citing Le Monde, 2 September 1982.
[Note 40]. See General Secretary Gorbachev's letter to Prime Minister
Papandreou, published in To Pondiki (Athens), 3 July 1987, p. 12, translated in Foreign Broadcast
Information Service, Soviet Union: Daily Report [hereafter FBIS–SOV], 9 July 1987, pp.
H/1–3.
[Note 41]. Shevardnadze quoted by Tass in English, 10 June 1988, cited
in FBIS–SOV, 10 June 1988, p. 4. See further USSR Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadii Gerasimov, reported
by Tass in English, 23 August 1988, cited in ibid. , 24 August 1988, p. 4; and Soviet Ambassador to
Cyprus Iurii Fokin, interviewed by Kharavyi (Nicosia), 23 April 1989, translated in ibid., 24
April 1989, pp. 37–39.
[ page 206 ]
[Note 42]. Soviet experience with the Federal Republic of Germany in
the late 1960s is the basis for this reasoning. It appears in many Soviet writings about East–West
relations in the 1970s. A notable example is Sh.K. Sanakoev and N.I. Kapchenko, O teorii vneshnei politiki
sotsializma [On the Theory of Socialism's Foreign Policy] (Moscow: Mezhdunarondye otnosheniia, 1977), pp.
162, 169, 202, 210, and esp. pp. 216–19; also R.I. Kosolapov, "Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia i
sotsial′nyi progress" [International Relations and Social Progress], Voprosy filosofii,
1974, no. 5 (May), pp. 3–18, esp. pp. 6–8.
[Note 43]. Semih Vaner, "Le rapprochement turco-soviétique
et l'affaire chypriote," Revue française d'études politiques
méditerranées, no. 18–19 (June–July 1976), pp. 63–74.
[Note 44]. For a frank criticism of Denktash, see also V. Potapov,
"Kiprskii reportazh" [Cypriot Reportage], Pravda , 13 May 1989, p. 4.
[Note 45]. Other than Cyprus, the only Greek–Turkish dispute
implicating the USSR is the demarcation of territorial waters in the Aegean Sea. Since a bilateral
Greek–Soviet arrangement has become unlikely, the Soviets have argued that territorial claims must not
impede the sea lanes there.
[Note 46]. Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece, pp.
288–89.
[Note 47]. See the Tass report of Foreign Minister Shevardnadze's
meeting with President Vassiliou of Cyprus, cited in FBIS–SOV, 10 June 1988, pp, 4–5.
Dr. Robert M. Cutler [ website — email ] was educated at MIT and The University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. in Political Science, and has specialized and consulted in the international affairs of Europe, Russia, and Eurasia since the late 1970s. He has held research and teaching positions at major universities in the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, and Russia, and contributed to leading policy reviews and academic journals as well as the print and electronic mass media in three languages.
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