Greece and Turkey are poised to drop decades of mutual distrust and animosity in a major shift of policy that has won plaudits - and disbelief. The love-in between the traditional foes in the aftermath of both suffering devastating earthquakes, just three weeks apart, appears to know no bounds. As the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Ismail Cem , prepared to hold historic talks in Brussels today - talks that are aimed at thawing years of mistrust between Ankera and the EU - his Greek counterpart, Mr George Papandreou, last night pledged that Athens would actively help Turkey join the 15-nation bloc. The two NATO allies have nearly gone to war three times since Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 after an Athens-inspired coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.
Mr Papandreou's offer - outlined in an interview with The Irish Times - could have a formidable impact on the future of Greeks and Turks living on the divided island, as well as differences over the Aegean Sea. Improved Greek-Turkish relations will almost certainly ameliorate the climate for stalled UN-brokered negotiations on Cyprus, analysts say.
"We want to offer each other peace," Mr Papandreou said as the two neighbours prepared for a new round of low level negotiations in Ankara this week. "Greece, for one, not only wants to see Turkey in the EU, it wants to be pulling the cart of a European Turkey. Contrary to popular belief, it is to the benefit of Greece if Turkey is in the EU (rather) than having it in continued conflict and tension with the bloc and European standards."
Turkey's relations with Brussels have been especially strained since 1997 when it was spurned from talks on the enlargement of the EU - amid fears over its human rights record, weak economy and disputes with Greece.
The son of Greece's late Prime Minister, Andreas Papandreou - whose hard-line policies almost saw the two countries going to war in 1987 - George Papandreou said the time had come to act on popular demands for rapprochement. Those demands, he said, had been echoed with the outpouring of popular sympathy that followed the natural disasters in both states. While Greeks were the first to send a team of rescuers when their neighbour suffered its fatal earthquake on August 17th, the Turks responded in kind when Athens suffered a deadly tremor last week.
The mutual assistance was quickly praised by President Clinton, who is keen to reconcile the traditional foes before his term expires in 16 months' time. In a clear nod to the political significance of the Turkish gesture, the Greek head of state, President Costis Stephanopoulos, honoured the team last Friday with an emotional reception at Athens's presidential palace.
"The people in their wisdom were sending a message to the political elites of both countries," Mr Papandreou continued, "that we should not only help each other but be friends." He added that the co-operation "broke the myth of the age-old animosity between the two countries, that neither Greeks nor Turks can live together, that the only thing that exists between them is hatred."
That message, he said, had been backed up by the support for rapprochement shown by usually strident media in both capitals. Last week the Turkish daily Milliyet ran the front page headline: "Like a family in the Aegean - this friendship cannot be demolished." A columnist in the usually hard-hitting Hurriyet newspaper wrote: "The back-to-back disasters suffered by both countries have shown that . . . the people of Greece and Turkey bear no enmity, no hate."
Last week, in a display of unprecedented sensitivity, the Turks ensured that celebrations marking the liberation of Izmir - normally an occasion for rabidly antiGreek displays - was unusually discreet.
Officials say, with the growing demand for reconciliation, Greece and Turkey should use the role models of France and Germany after the second World War.
"They were two deadly enemies who today have become two highly interdependent states," said Prof Theodore Couloumbis, a specialist in Greco-Turkish affairs, who heads Eliamep, a foreign policy think-tank in Athens. "If they can do it, we can do it too." Athens and Ankara have recently also held secret top-level talks on a military level. But, on a political level, Mr Papandreou said Greece would put words into action by being as "constructive" as he possibly could on the issue of Turkey's EU candidacy by "sharing our own experience in becoming a member".
As the EU's only country not to share a common border with a fellow member state, he said Greece was now determined to advance the "common European dream" of all its neighbours. "It's to our benefit that our neighbours across the Balkans not only become EU members but advanced and prosperous countries," said the 44-year-old, the most popular member of Greece's new generation of politicians.
"Improving ties with Turkey goes hand-in-hand with the stability of the Balkans . . . one can move on the other," the Minister said.
Since the collapse of communism, the two regional rivals had frequently vied for influence in the volatile area. Greeks and Turks - adding to their long list of disputes - often competed to send investment and aid to Albania, Macedonia and Bosnia. But Mr Papandreou, who was educated in the United States where he also holds citizenship, said Kosovo had proved a turning point in relations between the two rivals. Instead of indulging in a war of words and bickering over policy, both had co-operated on the humanitarian mission of moving ethnic Albanian refugees and delivering aid, to and from, the embattled Serbian province.
"It provided a perfect opportunity for Papandreou and Cem to have contact . . . ever since they've been in regular telephone communication," said one of Mr Papandreou's senior aides.
The low-level talks, begun in Athens last week, have already been dubbed "earthquake diplomacy" by officials from both countries. By trying to capitalise on the mutual sympathy produced by the two disasters, it is now hoped they can dismantle the centuries of distrust that has existed between them. Diplomats from both countries say the talks are aimed at creating a bridge between them. By tackling areas where they are likely to find common ground - such as tourism, culture, the environment and the economy - many hope to create a momentum with which they can resolve bigger differences at a later date.
"In the past dialogue was always avoided because our differences were perceived to be so big that there was nothing to discuss," said Prof Couloumhis. "We were governed by zero-sum mentality. Now we're moving to a win-win strategy . . . reconcilation between Greece and Turkey is on the horizon."