By SELCAN HACAOGLU
ANKARA, Turkey
Turkey and Greece on Thursday announced a series of measures to build confidence between the rival neighbors, including joint military training designed in part to ease years of tension over airspace and sea boundaries and a local arms race.
Turkey’s Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the new moves ultimately could help limit arms spending.
As well, 10 key ministers, including those in charge of foreign and European Union affairs as well as energy and economy would meet at least twice a year, Davutoglu and Greece’s Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas announced.
The ministers said their armies would increase cooperation through joint training and conferences. The move is designed to encourage Turkish and Greek officers, who have for decades regarded each other as potential enemies, to work with each other.
The countries have been at odds for years over flight procedures over the Aegean Sea border. For decades, their warplanes have often engaged in mock dogfights.
“The measures will boost confidence between the two peoples and armies,” Droutsas told a joint news conference with Davutoglu.
Greece is suffering from a severe economic crisis and plans to cut defense spending in 2011 and 2012. Responding to a question over whether Turkey would follow Greece’s lead, Davutoglu said that there would be no need for arms spending if the neighbors could build a “common future.”
“We have a vision and it is not based on mutual threat but on mutual interests,” Davutoglu said. “If we manage to build a common future, there will be no need for defense spending.”
Davutoglu pointed out that his government has already reduced military spending, saying the government has spent more on education than arms in recent years.
EU-member Greece supports Turkey’s membership bid in the European Union, hoping that it will help solve territorial issues. The largest snag is the divided island of Cyprus where Turkey keeps about 40,000 troops.
Turkey began EU membership talks in 2005, but negotiations on some policy have been frozen over Turkey’s refusal to allow ships and planes from Cyprus to enter its ports and airspace, and the EU says Ankara must open its airspace to the EU member if it wants to get closer to membership itself.
In return, Turkey insists on the lifting of what it says is the unofficial trade embargo on the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north of the island, which was divided into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north following Turkey’s 1974 invasion.
Businessweek
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