ABSTRACT
The mid-1970s was a time of confusion for NATO in the Southern Flank. Greece and Turkey were at each other’s throat following the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the projection of Turkish claims on the Aegean Sea Bed. In August 1974, protesting at NATO’s inactivity during the second Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Greece withdrew its forces from NATO military command (see the discussion in Iatrides 2008b). Yet, it was understood that in case of a new world war, the Greek forces would fight along their Western allies.5 During this period, important developments took place between the Balkan states. The Greek Prime Minister, Constantinos Karamanlis, who had played an instrumental role in the country’s transition to democracy, visited Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia in the spring of 1975; indeed, this was the first ever official visit of a Greek Prime Minister to the Bulgarian capital, and the Bulgarians repeated the all-important assurance that they harboured no territorial claims towards Greece (Svolopoulos 1987b, 50). The definite Greek-Bulgarian reconciliation took place in these years, 1975-80, when official visits became frequent6 – although one suspects that the ongoing Greek-Turkish dispute and the anxiety of both Athens and Sofia at what they perceived as a new Turkish regional hegemonism also played a role in this. Turkish-Bulgarian reconciliation was delayed – mostly because of the persecution of the Muslim minority in Bulgaria in the 1980s – but relations between Ankara and Sofia did not reach a breaking point even during the tense first half of the 1980s. At the basis of this process lies the confidence of the regional powers that their neighbours accepted their common borders; without this, progress would have been unthinkable. This hopeful development could be attributed not only to the political will of the regional powers, but also to the stabilizing effects of the Cold War alliances.
