Europe | Turkey, Cyprus and NATO

Fogh in the Aegean

NATO’s secretary-general seeks better ties with the EU

ReutersFogh Rasmussen under Turkish scrutiny
| ANKARA

Reuters

Fogh Rasmussen under Turkish scrutiny

THE (perhaps vain) hope of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO's newish secretary-general, when he visited Greece and Turkey recently was to get these hostile NATO members to set aside their longstanding rivalry so as to improve co-operation between the alliance and the European Union. Turkey objects to this because of a Greek and Cypriot block on its own participation in EU military planning, and on its putative membership of the European Defence Agency. As Mr Fogh Rasmussen complains, this means NATO cannot formally protect EU policemen in Afghanistan. “It's a security issue. It's absurd,” he says.

Turkey, which has NATO's second-largest army, fiercely opposed Mr Fogh Rasmussen's candidacy for NATO's top job because he was Denmark's prime minister during the Prophet Muhammad cartoon crisis and because the Danes have refused to ban Roj TV, a satellite channel run by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that is beamed out of Denmark.

Mr Fogh Rasmussen's choice of Ramadan as the time to visit Turkey was calculated to ease Muslim anger. He took part in a lavish iftar (breaking of the fast) organised by the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It was, says Mr Fogh Rasmussen, “a clear manifestation” of his respect for Islam. Yet his Turkish hosts remained unswayed. His request for combat troops for Afghanistan seems to have been rebuffed, as were his entreaties that Turkey allow Cyprus to join NATO. But at least he wangled a commitment of more Turkish troops to work on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan.

Mr Fogh Rasmussen concedes that, unless and until the Cyprus dispute is resolved, there is little chance of a big improvement in NATO's relations with the EU. Turkey does not recognise the Greek-Cypriot government. Its continuing refusal to open ports and airports to Greek-Cypriot carriers may yet lead to a freezing of its EU membership negotiations later this year.

Mr Fogh Rasmussen wants pragmatism to prevail because the “lives of our forces are at risk”. He suggests that “the EU must accept a security arrangement with Turkey, and NATO a security arrangement with Cyprus”. Yet Greece recently protested that eight Turkish fighter jets had flown dangerously close to a Rhodes-bound Greek passenger aircraft. Western diplomats talk of a marked escalation in dogfights between Turkish and Greek pilots over the Aegean. Another NATO crisis in the making?

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Fogh in the Aegean"

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