NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/soc/culture/turkish/11898

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From: [e-mail] (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Balkans and Turkey (fwd)
Date: 21 Nov 1992 19:50:54 -0600
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> Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 10:36:05 EST
> From: [e-mail] (levent kocabiyik)
> Subject: Balkans and Turkey



 >From THE WORLD TODAY, Aug-Sept. 1992  (pp.163-165)

 =========================================================================
 EX-YUGOSLAVIA'S NEIGHBOURS: WHO WANTS WHAT ?   (Abridged)
 Franz-Lothar Altmann

     The former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) had
 seven neighbours: Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania
 and Italy. The war which has been going on since June 1991 in what used
 to be the territory of Yugoslavia has prompted various reactions from
 these neighbours, arising from a variety of interests and concerns.
 Among these are, in the first instance, concern about the overall
 stability in the region (especially fear of large-scale migration),
 old territorial conflicts, the presence of ethnic minorities on either
 side of the border, overall foreign policy considerations and, last
 but not least, the neighbour's own domestic policy considerations. This
 article will try to shed some light on the various positions of the
 neighbours, derived from the concerns and interests.
 ...
 *   ROMANIA has a small minority in Vojvodina, but it has denied
 charges by the Serbian press that it might have territorial claims.
 The Romanian government was particularly concerned that the Yugoslay
 breakup might encourage the Hungarians in Transylvania and thus
 threaten Romania's territorial unity.

     Romania has good economic ties with neighbouring Serbia, which is
 an important buyer of Romanian oil products. Romania also serves as a
 transit country for Russian and Chinese crude oil deliveries. However,
 Bucharest is primarily concerned with its own problems, in particular
 the situation in and around neighbouring Moldova as well as the severe
 problems posed by its own economic transformation.

     The Iliescu regime is not too concerned about the delay in the
 democratisation process in Serbia. This is not at all surprising in
 view of the continuing autocratic centralist tendencies in Romania.
 The 'reformist socialists' in Romania, who are mainly found in the
 ruling National Salvation Front, may feel some sympathy with the rather
 orthodox socialists in Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia, but they can see
 the isolation into which Milosevic is leading Serbia and Montenegro
 with his policy very clearly. Therefore, Bucharest has stressed several
 times the necessity for a peaceful solution 'without outside interference'
 by which the Romanians mean mainly Hungary. But Romania has fallen in
 with the EC sanctions against Serbia, although its economic interests
 have thereby been harmed.

 *   BULGARIA, like Romania, has ethnic minorities in Serbia as well as
 in Macedonia, but, as in Romania, domestic issues were dominant until
 the Macedonian question came up. The problem in Bulgaria is that, on
 the one hand, because of its fairly well-advanced democratisation
 (particularly compared with Romania), politicians are smpathising with
 the democratic movements in Slovenia and Croatia, including their
 claims for sellf-determination and independence. But, on the other hand,
 officials in Sofia are concerned with their own ethnic problems with
 the fairly large Turkish minority in Bulgaria. This is the reason for
 their ambivalent attitide towards separatism anywhere in the Balkans.

     Another important factor is Bulgaria's fear of Serbian hegemony in
 the region. Milosevic's aggressive policy undermines confidence and
 obstructs the development of good neighbourly relations. The fact that
 some minor nationalist groups offered to send volunteers to Croatia
 prompted the Serbian press to accuse Sofia of delivering guns to the
 Croatian enemy.

     Bulgaria and Turkey were the only states to recognise not only
 Slovenia and Croartia but also Bosna and Hercegovina and Macedonia all
 in one go. However, Sofia made it clear that it recognises only the
 Macedonian 'state', not the Macedonian 'nation'. The Bulgarians still
 consider the Macedonians as western Bulgarians, whereas the Serbs call
 them southern Serbs. The recognition of the Macedonian state was in
 the first instance a safeguard against what the Bulgarians see as
 Serbian expansionism, but it has placed the Sofia-Athens axis, which
 was forged against their big mutual adversary - Turkey - under heavy
 strain.

     Greece immediately protested against this 'unfriendly act' and put
 an even greater emphasis on close relations with Serbia. The Bulgarian
 Foreign Minister, Stoyan Ganev, tried to make Sofia's position clear
 by repeating, on 10 February 1992, that 'Bulgaria wishes to obtain
 guarantees from Skopje that it has no territorial claims on Bulgaria
 and that it does not intend to raise the question of minorities in
 Bulgaria, Greece or elsewhere.' This prompted the Skopje newspaper
 Nova Makedonija to state that Bulgaria was allying itself with Greece.

     Ganev then started to lobby the Balkan states, explaining and
 elaborating the Bulgarian standpoint. On 22 February he held talks with
 Romania's President Iliescu and other officials. Both sides agreed
 that all states bordering Yugoslavia should clearly renounce territorial
 claims. Ganev proposed a CSCE-type process for Balkan states that would
 guarantee existing borders and said that security was linked to the
 safety of borders, self-determination and renunciation of territorial
 claims. He then went on to visit Belgrade and Skopje to express Sofia's
 concern over the position of the Bulgarian minorities in the two states.

 *   GREECE has maintained good relations with Serbia for most of the
 time since the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. In 1913 Greece fought together
 with Serbia, Montenegro and Romania against Bulgaria. Strong economic
 interests tied Serbia and Greece because Salonika is a major port for
 Serbia, which had no direct access to the sea until it united with
 Montenegro recently. Most of Greece's export to its EC partners and
 the majority of its imports from there have to go through Serbia as
 the main transit route leads via Skopje, Nis and Belgrade to North-West
 Europe.

     Greece's friendly relations were Bulgaria were inspired by purely
 tactical considerations of a necessary alliance against Turkey. What
 helped was the fact that Bulgaria did not recognise the Macedonian nation.
 That was important for Greece since it does not accept the existence of
 ethnic minorities in Greece (i.e., Albanians in South Epirus, Turks in
 Thrace and Slavs in Greek Macedonia). When Bulgaria recognised the
 Macedonian state, old Greek fears were revived. Greece remembered old
 Bulgarian and Macedonian claims on the area around Salonika where
 probably more Slavic-speaking people still live than Athens is willing
 to acknowledge.

     Greece is paying the penalty for its total lack of any kind of
 minority policy in earlier years. The name 'Macedonia' for the new
 state was reason enough for Greece to accuse Skopje of making territorial
 claims on Northern Greece. In the official Greek view, the real
 Macedonians are Northern Greeks, and the fact that this ethnic term
 is considered as a name for the new republic is seen as a clear
 indication of the wish to include this region into Macedonian territory.
 A million demonstrators on the streets of Salonika underlined this
 standpoint, which is also rooted in domestic policy quarrels: each
 party tried to exploit nationalistic foreign policy platforms at a
 time when none of them had clear and stringent recipes for the much
 more urgent domestic problems.

     The main foreign policy consideration for Greece is its perception
 of the ever-present threat from a powerful Turkey. When Turkey announced
 its support for the Moslems in Bosnia and Hercegovina, this was seen as
 another attempt by Ankara to erect a Moslem barrier between Greece and
 Europe: Moslems in Albania (where they form the religious majority), in
 Bosnia and Hercegovina (43 per cent of the population), and in Sandzak/
 Novi Pazar (Moslem region in South-West Serbia), the mainly Moslem
 Albanians in Kosova and Macedonia, and the Turkish and Pomak (Moslem
 Bulgarians) in Bulgaria (about 12 per cent of the population) would
 form the Moslem arch linking with Turkey proper. This fear was behind
 Greece's negative attitude towards the breakup of Yugoslavia because
 for Athens a Yugoslavia led by an Orthodox Serbia was obviously a far
 better bet than several Moslem states surrounding Greece.

 *   Of all the neighbouring countries, ALBANIA is probably the most
 preoccupied with its own problems at home. But it cannot avoid becoming
 involved: there are almost as many Albanians living in the neighbouring
 parts of the former Yugoslavia as there are in Albania proper, which
 has a population of approximately 3m: 2m in Kosovo, where they make up
 90 per cent of the population in this formerly autonomous province,
 450,000 in Macedonia (about 20 per cent of the population, but estimates
 go as high as 600,000), and 40,000 in Montenegro (7 per cent of the
 population). Nationalism was reawakened in the democratisation process
 in Albania in 1991 and has effected Albania's reaction to the Yugoslav
 crisis.

     The Albanian Parliament stated on 11 July 1991 that there must be
 a halt to 'the criminal use of Red Terror by Serbia for new massacres
 in Kosovo', and that the fight by the Albanian people for survival in
 Yugoslavia 'would enjoy the backing of the whole Albanian nation.' The
 Albanian press compared Milosevic with Hitler and emphasised that
 Albanians would rather die than live together with Serbs, a pointer
 to further conflict in Kosovo. Although it is at present economically
 and militarily too weak, Albania will not stand aside when the conflict
 occurs. It has been trying to interest the Islamic world in the difficult
 positins of the Moslems in Bosnia and Hercegovina and in Kosovo, and it
 will no doubt also try to supply them with arms to help them fight off
 Serbian oppression. The time bomb is set and could explode any moment.
 ...
 *   Finally, TURKEY, a country which is not a direct neighbour of the
 former Yugoslavia but which is becoming an important actor on the Balkan
 scene. The rediscovery of the 'Turkophone' area in the former Soviet
 Union has increased the political and military weight of Turkey at the
 border between Europe and Asia. It will also have an impact on Turkish
 foreign policy in South-Eastern Europe. The problems of Turkish minorities
 and Islamic groups in the Balkans will regain political importance.
 Several scenarios are possible.

     Should the crisis extend and grow into a wider regional conflict
 involving neighbouring countries (e.g., Albania) or even take the shape
 of a new Balkan War, then we can take it for granted that Moslem forces
 will be supported by Turkey through arms deliveries as well as financially
 and at the diplomatic level. The question is whether Turkey would want
 to coordinate its actions with the West, in particular with the EC. Should
 the conflict take on the character of a religious war between Moslems
 amd Christians extending also to non-Yugoslav regions, then the Turkish
 minorities in Bulgaria and Greece could become exposed to collective
 repression that could prompt a limited Turkish military intervention.
 However, talk of a religious war is obviously not realistic at the moment,
 since in Bosnia and Hercegovina Moslems and (Catholic) Croats are fighting
 together against the Serb-led army and the Serbian paramilitaries
 popularly known as the Chetniks.

     In any case, even if a peaceful solution backed by strong European
 guarantees for minority rights can be reached, economic and cultural
 ties between Turkey and the new actors in the Balkans - Albania, Bosnia
 and Hercegovina, Macedonia and Bulgaria - will be intensified. This will
 not be as the result of a new active Turkish Balkan policy but because
 the Balkans are historically an area of Turkish interest and because the
 Islamic populations there will seek Turkish assistance. No restructuring
 in the Balkans will take a final shape without Turkish participation.

 ===========================================================================

                                                 Levent