A Century of Greek–Turkish Relations – A Handbook

“A Century of Greek-Turkish Relations is an important handbook written by leading authorities from both shores of the Aegean Sea. Greek and Turkish scholars present in a balanced and objective way, as well as in a graspable and meaningful manner, the main periods in which key events brought the two sides into dispute or even conflict. These events, which are integrated in parallel and conflicting national narratives, fuel the historicity of the two national rivals. A century since the end of the Greek-Turkish war, the trauma of the Greek military defeat and the “disaster of the Asia Minor Greeks”, the establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the emblematic Treaty of Lausanne, render this kind of handbook undoubtedly essential. It opens the discussion to the wider audience in a rational and composed way and most importantly, the reader can follow through the pages, the dialogue between Turkish and Greek scholars. A book of this kind was missing from public history.” – Prof. Sia Anagnostopoulou, Panteion University

“As an expert on the subject of “minorities” for the past fifty years with a number of publications in Turkish, English, and French, and based on the experts that are participating in the A Century of Greek-Turkish Relations: A Handbook, there is no doubt that this will become an indispensable tool, and above all, an objective account of the Greek-Turkish relations for both experts and the wider public.” – Prof. (emeritus) Baskin Oran, Ankara University

“As editors of this important and timely book, Nikos Christofis and Anthony Deriziotis assert that uneducated narratives have perpetuated misunderstandings within Turkish-Greek relations. In their enlightening work, they dismantle these misconceptions, offering a nuanced exploration of the historical and contemporary complexities between the two nations. By featuring insights from leading experts, this book provides a crucial resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Turkish-Greek relations, presenting new historical insights and analytical viewpoints on bilateral relations.” – Prof. Evren Balta, Özyeğin University

“A comprehensive and insightful survey of Greek-Turkish relations. A number of distinguished academics have offered their expertise succeeding in the formidable task of touching upon several sensitive issues avoiding stereotypes and easy readings of problems that are burdened by history. A must read for students and experts alike.” – Prof. Sotiris Roussos, University of Peloponnese

CONTENTS

• Preface – Nikos Christofis and Anthony Deriziotis
• The Uses and Abuses of History in Greece and Turkey – Nikos Christofis and Kerem Öktem
• The Greek-Turkish War of 1919–1922 – Charalampos Minasidis
• The 1923 Greco-Turkish Population Exchange: An Assessment of its History and Long Shadow at its Centennial – Aytek Soner Alpan
• Agreements and Friendship between Greece and Turkey in 1930:  Multifaceted Official Nationalist Discourses and Opposing Voices – Anna Vakali
• Anti-Rum Politics in Turkey, 1923-1946 – Alexandros Lamprou
• “The State Will Always Pursue You”: A History of Greeks in the Republic of Turkey  – Kutay Onayli
• Muslim Minority of Greece: From Lausanne to the Greek Civil War – Samim Akgönül
• Greek-Turkish Relations in the Shadow of World War II – Zuhal Mert Uzuner
• Realpolitik with a Twist: The United States and Greek-Turkish Relations  – Ekavi Athanassopoulou
• Rum Polites in the Context of Turkish-Greek Relations – İlay Romain Örs
• The Muslim Minority of Western Thrace, 1945-1999: A Strained Saga – Georgios Niarchos
• The “Troubled Triangle”: Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus, 1940s-1990s – Nikos Christofis
• Greek-Turkish Relations During the Junta Regime in Greece (1967-1974) – Melek Fırat and Özge Özkoç
• The Aegean Dispute – Alexis Heraclides
• Greek-Turkish Relations and Civil Society: Healing the Wounds? – Leonidas Karakatsanis
• Greek-Turkish Relations: The ‘Helsinki Moment’ in Greece’s Strategy to Turn the EU into A Catalyst for Conflict Resolution – Panayotis J. Tsakonas
• Greek-Turkish Relations and the Refugee Question – Anthony Deriziotis
• Reciprocal Minorities in Greece and Turkey: A Century of Adversity – Konstantinos Tsitselikis
• Energized Geopolitical Turmoil in the Endangered Eastern Mediterranean: Towards Anthropocene Geopolitics? – Emre İşeri
• “Hawks and Romantics”: The Role of Media in Turkish-Greek Diplomatic Seesaw – Emre Metin Bilginer
• “With or Without You”: Turkish-Greek Relations from the Perspective of Securitisation Theory – Başak Alpan
• The Prospects and Challenges for Cooperation in Cyprus – Ahmet Sözen and Devrim Şahin
• Greek – Turkish Encounters in the City: Who Meets Who in Kadıköy? – Kerem Öktem
• Post-script – Anthony Deriziotis and Nikos Christofis

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS:

Samim Akgönül is a historian and political scientist. He is the Director of the Department of Turkish Studies where he is a professor of Turkish studies at the University of Strasbourg. He is also the coordinator of the “Religions and Pluralism” research team of the French National Center for Scientific Research (DRES) and he also co-leads the research team working on “Analysis of contemporary issues in European societies: inequalities, mobility, risks” of the Interdisciplinary Thematic Institute “Making European Society”. His research focuses mainly on the political history of Turkey and minorities, especially non-Muslim minorities in Turkey, Muslim minorities in the Balkans, and the “new minorities” related to Turkey in Western Europe. Among his many publications is 100 Years of Greek-Turkish Relations: The Human Dimension of an Ongoing Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).

Başak Alpan is an Associate Professor and a Lecturer in European Politics and Political Sociology at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham with her research on the Turkish discourses on ‘Europe’ in the post-1999 period. She conducts research and extensively writes on European integration, discourse theory, post-structuralism, Turkish-EU Relations, and football and identity. Some recent articles by Alpan are, ‘Turkey and the Balkans: Bringing the Europeanisation/de-Europeanisation nexus into Question’ (with E. Öztürk) which appeared in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (2022) and ‘Teaching and Learning “Europe” in the Periphery: Disciplinary, Educational and Cognitive Boundaries of European Studies’ in Journal of Contemporary European Research (2022) (with T. Diez). Alpan worked on many EU-funded projects as a researcher, including FREE (Football Research in an Enlarged Europe), and FEUTURE (the Future of Turkey-EU Relations). She is currently the Coordinator of the JM Network LEAP (‘Linking to Europe at the Periphery’).

Aytek Soner Alpan is a historian holding a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His research focuses on the 1923 Greco-Turkish Population Exchange, forced displacement and refugee experience, the Turcophone Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and Greece, history and memory, and historiography. His research has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. In addition, he is the co-editor of the book Μουχατζηρναμέ/Muhacirname: Poetry’s Voice for the Karamanlidhes Refugees. Currently, he is a postdoctoral research fellow at the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University.

Ekavi Athanassopoulou is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Athens. She has a PhD from SOAS, University of London. Her books include Turkey’s Relations with Israel: The First Sixty-Two Years (Routledge, 2023), Strategic Relations between the U.S. and Turkey: 1979-2000: Sleeping with a Tiger (Routledge, 2014) and Turkey-Anglo-American Security Interests, 1945-1952: The First Enlargement of NATO (Frank Cass, 2012); co-editor of The Foreign Policy of Greece (in Greek) (Papazisis, 2020), editor of United in Diversity? European Integration and Political Cultures (I.B. Tauris, 2007).

Emre Metin Bilginer is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Kadir Has University on the project “An Analysis of the Sport’s Role in Turkey’s Foreign Relations and Global/Regional Image and an Analysis of Prominent Sports Diplomacy Strategies in the World” funded by TÜBİTAK. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Kadir Has University with his dissertation titled “Explaining the Rise of the Radical Right within the European Context: The Case of Golden Dawn”. He holds a BA in Modern Greek Philology from the University of Istanbul and an MA in International Relations with an emphasis on Turkish-Greek Studies from Istanbul Bilgi University. His research focuses mainly on Nationalism, European Radical Right, Populism, Turkish-Greek Relations, and Minority Issues

Nikos Christofis (Ph.D. Leiden, 2015) is associate professor of Turkish and Middle East history and politics at the Centre for Turkish Studies in Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an, China; adjunct lecturer at the Hellenic Open University; adjunct lecturer at UNICAF (Cyprus); and affiliate researcher at the Netherlands Institute at Athens (NIA). He is a comparative political historian working on the Eastern Mediterranean (Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece) and the Middle East. He published more than sixty articles and book chapters in English, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, and Chinese, two monographs, and edited 9 volumes. Among his latest publications are the edited books Οι Κούρδοι της Τουρκίας: Από την Οθωμανική περίοδο έως και τις μέρες μας (with A. Deriziotis and M. Issi, University of Patras Press, 2023), and Elections and Earthquakes: Quo Vadis Turkey? (Transnational Press London, 2024); the article “Kemalism vs Erdoğanism: Continuities and Discontinuities in Turkey’s Hegemonic State Ideology” (Middle East Critique); and the book chapter “Deviating from the National Narrative: The Workers’ Party of Turkey and Cyprus” (Leiden University Press, 2023).

Anthony Deriziotis is a Lecturer on Turkey and the Middle East at the Department of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (since 2010), and Head of the Turkey Program of the Institute of International Economic Relations (I.D.O.S.). His research interests and publications cover Turkish domestic and foreign policy and focus on Turkey’s relations with the United States and the Middle East, and the Kurdish issue. His publications include articles in international peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, edited volumes, book editing and book reviews. In 2023 he published, together with M. Issi and N. Christofis, the volume Οι Κούρδοι της Τουρκίας: Από την Οθωμανική περίοδο έως και τις μέρες μας (University of Patras Press, 2023).

Melek Fırat is a Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science of Ankara University. She received her M.A. degree from Ankara University in 1989 and M. Phil. degree from Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in 1995. Dr. Fırat completed her Ph.D. in 1996 at Ankara University with the thesis titled “The Process of Transition to Multifaceted Foreign Policy in Turkey, 1960-1971.” Her publications are mainly focused on Turkish-Greek Relations, the Cyprus Question, and Turkish Foreign Policy. Dr. Fırat is currently the head of the Department of International Relations at Ankara University.

Alexis Heraclides is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Athens) and author of ten books in English and sixteen books in Greek. Among his contributions are the Cyprus Problem and the Greek-Turkish conflict with an emphasis on the Aegean dispute. Among his publications are The Greek-Turkish Conflict in the Aegean: Imagined Enemies (Macmillan 2010), and Greece and Turkey in Conflict and Cooperation: From Europeanization to De-Europeanization (Routledge, 2019).

Emre İşeri is professor and the Director of the Center for Mediterranean Studies and a full-time academic at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Department of International Relations at Yaşar University, İzmir, Türkiye. His research interests comprise global political economy, politics of energy/sustainability, political communication, Mediterranean politics, and Turkish politics/foreign policy. He has been involved in various international/national research projects. He has published numerous academic articles/chapters in books and journals both in Turkey and abroad, including Geopolitics, Energy Policy, Environment, and Planning C, and most recently International Communication Gazette.

Leonidas Karakatsanis is Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki Greece, and an Honorary Fellow of the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA). He holds a PhD in Ideology and Discourse Analysis from the University of Essex. He is the author (among others) of Turkish-Greek Relations: Rapprochement, Civil Society and the Politics of Friendship (Routledge 2014) and was the Assistant Director of the British Institute at Ankara between 2015-2019.

Alexandros Lamprou studied Turkish history (PhD Leiden 2009) and has taught Turkish and Greek history in Greece, Turkey, and Germany. He has published on state–society relations, anti-minority campaigns, and the reception of anti-Semitism in Turkey, as well as population displacement from Greece during World War II. He has published a book on state-society relations in interwar Turkey, an edited volume on the displacement from Greece to the Middle East during WWII, and a co-edited volume on the history of the early republican period in Turkey.

Charalampos Minasidis is an ERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for War Studies at University College Dublin. He completed his PhD at The University of Texas at Austin in 2023. He has authored the monograph United States Policy on the Macedonian Question during the 1940s (2016; in Greek), has co-edited the collective volume Greek Soldiers and the Asia Minor Campaign: Aspects of a Painful Experience (2022; in Greek), and has edited the book A Jewish Officer on the Asia Minor Front: Unpublished Accounts of the Athenian Second Lieutenant Daniel Sevillias’s War Action and Death (2023; in both English and Greek).

Georgios Niarchos studied Theology (University of Athens) and holds an MA in East European Studies (University of Bradford). He was awarded his PhD (European Institute, LSE), after completing his thesis: ‘Between Ethnicity, Religion and Politics. Foreign Policy and the Treatment of Minorities in Greece and Turkey, 1923-1974’. He participated in research projects at the LSE and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is the author of ‘Dimitrios Gounaris’ (2018) and co-author (with Kevin Featherstone K., Papadimitriou D. and Mamarelis A.) of the ‘The Last Ottomans. The Muslim Minority of Greece, 1940-1949’ (Palgrave,2011; published also in Greek and Turkish). He has published articles in refereed journals and book chapters, and he has made contributions to international conferences on Greek-Turkish relations and modern Greek and Balkan history. Currently, he works in secondary education in Greece.

Kutay Onayli is a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Studies and Interdisciplinary Humanities at Princeton University. He works on the histories and literatures of the late Ottoman Empire, Greece, and Turkey. His dissertation project is a retelling of the story of Ottoman collapse through Greek Ottoman popular writing from 1908 onwards, exploring genres from satirical verse and historical fiction to essays and letters-to-the-editor.

Ilay Ors is Associate Professor in Social Anthropology. Before receiving her Joint PhD and MPhil degrees in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, she completed her undergraduate studies in Sociology and Political Science & International Relations at Boğaziçi University, and postgraduate studies in Social Anthropology at the University College London. Among her many publications on the Rum Polites are Diaspora of the City: stories of cosmopolitanism from Istanbul and Athens (2018) and İstanbullu Rumlar ve 1964 Sürgünleri (2019). Based in Athens as a faculty member at the American College of Greece, Ors is currently working on her research project on “Constantinopolitans in the global diaspora of the City” as a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies of Harvard University.

Kerem Öktem is a Professor of Politics and International Relations at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His research focuses on Turkey’s politics with an eye on the intersection of global and local forces, minority rights, and urban politics. The current processes of autocratization, de-Europeanization and de-secularization and their implications for a number of interrelated fields have become central to his work. In his latest publications, he has dealt with these implications in ‘Turkey’s Exit from Democracy’ (with Karabekir Akkoyunlu, Routledge 2019) and Turkish Jews and their Diasporas (with Ipek Yosmaoğlu, Palgrave 2022). He currently works on a research project examining Turkey’s neo-imperial foreign policy and its use of mosque-building in Southeast Europe.

Özge Özkoç is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science of Ankara University. She received her M.A. degree from Ankara University in 2007. Dr. Özkoç completed her Ph. D. in 2014 at Ankara University with the thesis titled “Ottoman Egypt at the Frontier of Imperial Power: From Reign of Mehmet Ali Pasha to the Khediviate”. Dr. Özkoç received post-doctoral scholarship from Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Center to be used at SOAS, University of London during 2015-2016 academic year. Her publications are focused on the History and Politics of the Middle East, and Turkish Foreign Policy.

Ahmet Sözen is professor of International Relations at Eastern Mediterranean University as well as the founding Director of Cyprus Policy Center. Sözen was granted one of the fifty 1997 Paul Harris Ambassadorial Peace Scholarships on International Conflict Resolution given on a world-wide competition by International Rotary Foundation. In addition to an extensive publication record, he has given dozens of invited speeches on conflict resolution – including two TED talks (TEDxNicosia 2012, TEDxEMUniversity 2014), the Cyprus conflict and Turkish foreign policy in various countries and he frequently appears on international media, such as Al-Jazeera, Euronews and BBC, where he comments on world events.

Devrim Şahin is an Assistant Professor in the International Relations Department and Chair of Strategic Planning Department at the Cyprus Science University. He is also an expert of the Middle East Policy Council and the Eurasia Strategic Research Foundation (ASAM) and a research fellow of the Cyprus Policy Center. He has authored several volumes, chapters, and articles in peer reviewed international scientific journals. Additionally, he is part of the editorial board or external reviewers of peer reviewed international journals. His current research interests include efforts to bring together quantum philosophy and peace studies. He has also been associated with the UNDP-funded NGO activity in Cyprus that was awarded “The Marriage, Knowledge and Branding Award for Peace” for the longest inter-communal partnership in peace-building efforts. His article entitled “Time for a Nahost-Politik” featured among the top 20 inspirational ideas cited at the 2016 McKinsey Awards.

Panayiotis J. Tsakonas is Professor of International Relations and Security Studies at the University of Athens, Director of the MA Program in “International and European Governance and Policy” and of the “Institute of Migration and Diaspora Studies” and Head of the “Programme on Security and Foreign Policy” at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Professor Tsakonas has held research posts at Harvard, Yale, and Oxford Universities. His research has been published in Greek, English, German, French and Italian and it mainly concerns regional security issues, Greek foreign and security policy, and Greek-Turkish relations.

Konstantinos Tsitselikis is Professor of Human Rights and International Organizations at the University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki, Greece). Dean of the School of Economic and Regional Studies (2018-2023). Author of a series of books, studies, and articles on human rights, minorities, refugee and migrant rights. He has also taught at the Universities of Thrace and Bilgi (Istanbul) and cooperated with the universities of Harvard, Sorbonne II, SOAS, among many others. Member of the Secretariat of the Research Centre for Minority Groups (KEMO) and chairman of the Hellenic League for Human Rights (2011-2017). Co-director of the Series of Studies of KEMO at Vivliorama publications.

Zuhal Mert Uzuner is an associate professor of international relations at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Marmara University. Uzuner studies foreign policy analysis, Greek foreign policy, Greek-Turkish relations, Turkish foreign policy, Balkans and Mediterranean politics. Apart from Turkish, she speaks English and Greek and has several articles, books, and papers in these languages. Among her publications is the monograph Anapofeuktoi Sintrofoi o Ellino Italikos Polemos ston Tourkiko Tipo Oktovrios Dekemvrios 1940 (in Greek, Epikentro, 2016) and editor of the Role of Image in Greek Turkish Studies (Peter Lang, 2018).

Anna Vakali has been an Ottoman and Modern Turkish History Instructor at the Kadir Has University in Istanbul since 2021. She graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and continued with an MA at the Bogazici University in Istanbul. She completed her PhD at the University of Basel, Switzerland, with a PhD thesis titled: ‘Tanzimat in the Province: Nationalist Sedition, Banditry and Local Councils in the Ottoman Southern Balkans (1840s to 1860s)’. She has published several articles on Ottoman social history of the 19th century, non-Muslims in the Balkans and Greek nationalism.