Turkish-Greek Relations

A critical perspective on the vicious cycle of improvement and deterioration in Greek-Turkish relations

• Provides trends of securitisation and desecuritisation to present the political nature of securitisation by either the military bureaucrats or civilian authorities.
• Analyses the speech acts to understand the influence of the securitising actors in Turkish foreign policy and provides invaluable insight into Turkey’s securitisation and desecuritisation of Greece.
• Argues that the rapprochement process in Turkish-Greek relations paved the way for desecuritisation in Turkish foreign policy, and the best way to explain this period is to use the ‘change through stability’ form of desecuritisation suggested by Hansen.

The relationship with Greece has always been at the forefront in determining Turkish foreign policy. This book focuses broadly on the main issues of contention between Turkey and Greece, and analyses Turkey’s policies towards Greece, based on the securitisation framework and focusing on the discourse of elites in the post-Cold War period. It inquires how, by whom and the extent to which Turkish foreign policy has securitised and de-securitised Greece.

Based on an extensive discourse analysis of statements from Turkish elites – including the president, prime minister, minister of foreign affairs, chief of general staff and the secretary general of the National Security Council – Cihan Dizdaroğlu presents a fresh and critical analysis of the foreign policy Turkey enacts regarding Greece. Considering the contemporary geopolitical issues such as competition over the Eastern Mediterranean, the ongoing deadlock in Cyprus, Turkey’s involvement in Libya as well as the emergence of new tension in the Aegean Sea, Greek-Turkish relations will continue to be a critical subject of international relations.