Breeze of cooperation warms relations between feuding Turkey and Greece

Breeze of cooperation warms relations between feuding Turkey and Greece

This autumn is due to see the completion of the purchase by the National Bank of Greece, the largest bank in Greece, of a 46% stake in Finansbank AS, Turkey's eighth-largest bank. The price tag agreed in April is €2.3 bn ($2.77 bn), with the investment not only striking for its size but as a harbinger of an upsurge in Greek investment in Turkey. Indeed, one month later EFG Eurobank, controlled by the Latsis family, agreed to buy 70% of Tekfenbank for $180 million. Alpha Bank's Yannis Costopoulos also said that his bank was planning a foothold in Turkey.

To date, some 250 Turkish companies have capital from Greece. But some of these have fallen by the wayside and some others are trading companies set up by Moslems from Thrace. Only 35-40 are active, according to the Greek Consulate General in Istanbul, not least being Intrasoft's $70 million investment in Gantek, the information technology company.

This situation is now expected to change, at least in Istanbul. "Our investment is a sign of a better climate, a vote of confidence, building a financial bridge between the two countries," says George Derbentlis, part of the team which negotiated the National Bank deal. "Since we signed, the markets were turbulent, but we stayed, and will stay."

In Greece, outside shipping, few investments have taken place. But in Athens there is a new fascination with things Turkish:

• The fashion retailer Ipekyol has established a boutique at the new "The Mall" in Marousi
• Turkish sweet-maker Gulluoglu has set up shop in the heard of Athens, on Odos Nikis at Syntagma
• Tike and Sirkeci have opened kebab shops, and Gelik is following
• Pandelli, a traditional Greek restaurant in the Istanbul Spice market, has opened an Athens version

A decade ago, I helped the owner of a Turkish perlite mine set up a joint venture with Silver & Barytes of Athens. I was not sure how both governments would react. The Turkish authorities were still using the only law never to have been published in the Official Gazette to strike at property ownership by the Greek Orthodox minority in Istanbul. The Greek Foreign Ministry was opposing EU aid to Turkey. And concerts by Greek singers in Istanbul or exhibitions by Turkish painters in Greece were as much political as cultural events.

But both governments welcomed the perlite investment, and indeed economics and cultural exchange have helped build bridges where foreign ministries could not.

In the last five years, 25 bilateral agreements have been signed between the two countries and there has been a fivefold increase in the volume of two-way trade. Greece's trade with Turkey in the first six months of 2006 was almost the same as in the whole of 2003 - with Turkey exporting $682 million of goods and importing $528 million. "We can soon raise this to EUR 5 billion," Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, said in Athens on May 7, 2004 during what was the first official visit by a Turkish Prime Minister since 1988.

Tourism too has flourished, with around 585,000 Greeks visiting Turkey in 2005 - an impressive 5% of the Greek population - and a similar number of Turks visiting Greece (despite the one-sided visa requirements).

Alexis Alexandris, the Greek Consul General in Istanbul, has long been putting his weight behind cultural activities, seeing these as particularly important:

"The Greek culture of Istanbul was very vibrant, respected both among the Greek community in Istanbul and in Greece. This culture needs to be revived.

"Cultural activities bring the Greek community in touch with the Turks who have open minds, sensitizing them to the presence of the Greeks and giving the Greeks self confidence, encouraging them not to be introverted."

An important step in this was achieved with the Greek community's conference at the end of June, Meeting in Istanbul, Today and Tomorrow. 1,100 people attended this, 600 from the Greek Orthodox community in Turkey and 500 from abroad. They heard how the total community here was not the 2,000 which most had assumed but totaled 5,200.

The conference included a concert by Evanthia Rebutsika, Elli Paspala and Dilek Mihaleris. A month later, Haris Alexiou was singing in Istanbul and Bodrum, attracting the same enthusiastic crowds as Aliki Kayaloglou had a year before. And in August, Pandelis Thalasinos was performing in the Ege Aegean Festival at Yalikavak.

Music travels well, and, increasingly, so do films and books. Greek director, Theo Angelopoulos, received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Istanbul Film Festival in 2000, and came here in June as guest of honor for a Cinema and Media Conference, organized by Istanbul Bilgi University. Meanwhile there has been a surge in the number of Greek authors being translated and published in Istanbul, and of Turkish authors appearing in Athens. Alkis Courcoulas, describes the publishing situation today as "spectacular" - strong words from a normally soft-spoken person, with 20 years experience of living first hand in Turkey the downs and now ups of the long volatile relations between the two countries.