Greece and Bulgaria Plan Anti-Turkey Strategies

[Ricardo Reis]

Greece and Bulgaria, both Orthodox Christian nations with significant Turkish Muslim minorities, are developing common strategies toward Turkey that include military cooperation.

Western diplomats in Athens said that the growing concern in Athens and Sofia over unrest among Muslim minorities may render Greece and Bulgaria allied ''front-line states'' in Europe against the spread of Muslim fundamentalism.

The problem was aggravated last week after clashes in northeastern Greece between Christian Greeks and Ethnic Turkish Muslims, which left one Greek dead and several wounded on both sides.

They were the first such clashes in a NATO country after the recent ethnic strife in Eastern Europe.

The Muslims were protesting the sentencing of two ethnic Turkish politicians, who were found guilty of inciting ethnic unrest through demands for autonomy.

The incidents have led to an exchange of accusations between Greece and Turkey and respective protests in international forums.

The situation prevailing in Greece is similar to the Bulgarian-Turkish crisis last year.

But Greece and Bulgaria so far have differed in their handling of the Muslim minority problem.

Bulgaria has tried to force their departure.

But Greece, to counter the numerical superiority of the Muslims in parts of Western Thrace, an area which borders Turkey and Bulgaria, is resettling large numbers of Greeks there from the Pontos region of the Soviet Union. The Government has requested aid for the project from the European Community's refugee fund.

Greek-Bulgarian cooperation was accelerated by the Bulgarian Foreign Minister's visit to Athens last month. The minister, Bojko Dimitrov, came directly from a meeting in Kuwait with the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mesut Yilmaz, who Western diplomatic officials said, rejected Bulgaria's request for a nonaggression pact.

Greek Government officials confirmed the information and said that Greece's similar requests for a nonaggression pact with Turkey had been repeatedly rejected by Ankara over the last few years.

The Western diplomatic officials said the rejections had increased Greece and Bulgaria's suspicions of Turkish intentions, and have accelerated their plans for closer military cooperation.

Foreign Minister Antonis Samaras of Greece, the architect of the plan to counter Muslim influence in Thrace, said after his meeting with Mr. Dimitrov that Greek-Bulgarian relations were excellent and that there was ''a coincidence of views on all issues.''

He said Greece supported Bulgaria's democratic evolution from Communism and, as a member of the European Community, would help Bulgaria develop its ties with the community.

Mr. Dimitrov said that ''profound democratic changes'' were taking place in Bulgaria and that the country's foreign policy was being reassessed.

He said Greek-Bulgarian relations would ''continue to be a stabilizing factor in the Balkan Peninsula and changes taking place in Bulgaria and Europe increase the importance of friendship and cooperation with Greece.'' With the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe, Greece no longer feels threatened by totalitarianism but by nationalist tensions in the Balkans, a region dubbed ''the powder keg of Europe.''

Greece's fear of Turkey also stems from Ankara's 1974 invasion and continuing partial occupation of the predominantly Greek island republic of Cyprus.

Last month in Bulgaria, during mass anti-Turkish rallies protesting concessions granted to the Muslim minority there, demonstrators chanted ''Bulgaria is not Cyprus.''

The demonstrations and slogans were given wide publicity in the Greek state-controlled press.

Greek demonstrators against the Muslim minority last week chanted, ''We will not be turned into Turks!''


Hellenic News of America